content-gap-analysis

name

content-gap-analysis

description

Find topics, keywords, and angles that competitors cover but you don't via the Tavily MCP. Use when the user wants to find content gaps, plan editorial calendars, identify SEO opportunities, see what topics competitors own, or says "what topics do competitors cover that we don't", "find content gaps", "blog topics we should write about", "where are we losing in search", "what should we write next", or anything similar. Combines site-mapping, search ranking checks, and synthesis into a prioritized opportunity list. For full SEO audits, this is the content-side companion to a technical audit.

Content Gap Analysis

Find topics covered by competitors that the user doesn't cover — ranked by opportunity. Outputs a prioritized list of content angles with evidence.

When to use this skill

• "What topics do competitors cover that we don't?"
• "Plan our blog editorial calendar."
• "Find SEO opportunities we're missing."
• "Where are we losing in search?"
• "What should we write next?"

For technical SEO problems (schema, hreflang, crawl errors), this skill isn't the right tool — Tavily can't run a full technical audit. Steer the user to a SEO-specific tool and stay focused on content.

Workflow

1. Establish baseline: get the user's domain and 2–4 competitor domains. Confirm before proceeding.
2. Inventory each site's content:
   • tavily_map from <domain>/blog (or equivalent) with instructions: "blog posts and resource articles", exclude_paths: ["/tag/", "/author/", "/page/\\d+/"].
   • For each site, extract URL paths and titles.
3. Cluster topics: group URLs into 8–15 topic clusters. Use the page titles plus tavily_extract on a sample if titles are ambiguous.
4. Build the topic-coverage matrix:
   • Rows = topic clusters.
   • Columns = sites (us + each competitor).
   • Cells = page count or "covered / not covered".
5. Rank gaps (topics where competitors are deep and the user is shallow or absent). For each candidate gap:
   • tavily_search for the topic to see who's actually ranking.
   • Check whether the search has commercial intent (transactional queries) or informational (top-of-funnel).
6. Output a prioritized opportunity list with effort vs. opportunity scoring.

Output template

# Content Gap Analysis — {User domain} vs {N} competitors
*{YYYY-MM-DD}*

## Baseline
| Site | Posts indexed | Topics covered |
|------|---------------|----------------|
| {us} | {N} | {N} |
| {comp 1} | {N} | {N} |
| …

## Topic coverage matrix
| Topic | Us | {C1} | {C2} | {C3} | Gap? |
|-------|----|----|----|----|------|
| {Topic A} | 0 | 12 | 8 | 5 | ✅ Major |
| {Topic B} | 1 | 6 | 4 | 2 | ✅ Moderate |
| {Topic C} | 8 | 5 | 3 | 1 | We lead |
| …

## Top opportunities

### 1. {Topic A} — Major gap (high opportunity)
- **Why it matters**: {reason — search volume signal, audience fit}.
- **Who owns it now**: {C1}, {C2}.
- **Suggested angle**: {angle that's not yet taken}.
- **Suggested formats**: {pillar guide / listicle / comparison / case study}.
- **Effort**: {low / medium / high}.
- **Sources**: [1], [2]

### 2. …

## Recommended editorial calendar (next 4–8 weeks)
1. {Title} — targets gap #{N}
2. …

## Sources
[1] {url}
[2] {url}

Effort-vs-opportunity scoring

For each gap, assign:

• Opportunity (1–5): search demand signal + audience fit + commercial intent.
• Effort (1–5): can the user write this from existing knowledge or do they need new research / interviews / data?

Sort by opportunity / effort. Top 3–5 go on the recommended calendar.

Patterns

• Comparison content: if competitors have "X vs Y" pages and the user doesn't, that's almost always a gap worth filling.
• Pricing / ROI calculators: high commercial intent, easy to ship, often missing.
• Original research / data posts: if no one in the space has run a survey or analyzed real data, suggest one — high differentiation.

Failure modes

• User has fewer than 5 posts: don't over-index on competitor depth. Recommend foundational pillar pages first.
• Competitor is a content-marketing machine 10× the user's size: scope down to a handful of clusters where the user can compete rather than a comprehensive map.
• Sites with no /blog/ structure: scope from the homepage with instructions: "long-form articles and guides".