On October 19, 2026, we pulled every blog post four standing desk brands have published. Autonomous had 3,406. Branch had 192, Uplift 163 and Vari 113. Then we ran a content gap analysis for Vari, looking for topics its rivals cover that it doesn't.
The first pass found 29 gaps. By the time we'd checked each one against search demand and the actual results page, about six were worth writing. This guide walks through that process step by step, using the real numbers, so you can run it on your own market.
What a content gap analysis finds
A content gap analysis compares topics. You list what your competitors publish, group it into subjects and mark the subjects they cover that you don't.
It sits next to two other checks. A keyword gap analysis compares the searches each site ranks for, and a backlink gap analysis compares the sites that link to each one. Our SEO competitor analysis runs a keyword gap between two help desk tools, so this post focuses on topics and finishes with links.
We picked Vari as the example because its resource center is a typical size for a mid-sized brand. The three rivals were Uplift, Branch and Autonomous, all selling standing desks and office chairs online.
Step 1: List every page your competitors publish
You don't need a paid tool for this part. Most sites list their pages in a sitemap, and the robots.txt file at the root of the domain says where it is.
We fetched each brand's sitemap and kept only blog and resource URLs. One rival, FlexiSpot, returned nothing to our script, so we left it out.
| Brand | Blog or resource articles |
|---|---|
| Autonomous | 3,406 |
| Branch | 192 |
| Uplift | 163 |
| Vari | 113 |
The URL slugs alone tell you a lot. Branch's slugs read like questions buyers type, such as how-long-should-you-stand-at-a-standing-desk and office-chair-sinking-fix. By our rough sort, about two-thirds of Vari's 113 articles are about Vari itself, workplace culture or the return to the office.
Step 2: Group the pages into topics
A list of 3,874 URLs isn't a plan yet. We wrote 45 buyer topics, from "how long to stand at a standing desk" to "standing desk wobble," and matched every slug to them.
Then we marked a topic as a gap when Vari had no article on it and at least two of the three rivals did. That gave us 29 gaps. Here's a sample.
| Topic | Vari | Uplift | Branch | Autonomous |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How long to stand at a standing desk | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Under desk treadmills | 0 | 1 | 2 | 36 |
| Cable management | 0 | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| Standing desk height | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Dual monitor setup | 0 | 0 | 3 | 20 |
| Tech neck | 0 | 0 | 1 | 14 |
| Standing desk weight capacity | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
Slug matching is crude, and it misses topics a site covers inside a page with an unrelated URL. Treat this step as a long list, since the next three steps exist to shrink it.
We'll show you exactly where your brand stands in AI search.
No commitment. $0 due today, cancel anytime. See how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Google AI Mode talk about your brand today.
Step 3: Cross off gaps a product page already covers
Before writing anything, check whether you already rank for the topic some other way. We pulled the top 1,000 searches Vari ranks for on Google's first two pages and compared them to the gap list.
Two gaps disappeared straight away. Vari ranked first for "anti fatigue mat standing desk" with its standing mats category page, and fourth for "l shaped standing desk" with the product page itself. A blog post on either would compete with Vari's own pages.
This step matters most for ecommerce. A topic gap often turns out to be a search that wants a product, and the fix there is a better category page, not an article.
Step 4: Check that people search for it
Next we pulled US monthly search volume for each gap. The spread was huge.
| Gap search | US searches a month |
|---|---|
| under desk treadmill | 60,500 |
| tech neck | 33,100 |
| dual monitor setup | 18,100 |
| standard desk size | 1,600 |
| standing desk height | 1,300 |
| standing desk cable management | 1,300 |
| standing desk calories burned | 170 |
| how long should you stand at a standing desk | 140 |
| standing desk weight capacity | 20 |
Low volume doesn't rule a topic out on its own. "Standing desk weight capacity" gets about 20 searches a month, but the person asking is close to buying, which is worth more than thousands of casual readers.
Step 5: See who actually wins each search
Many gap reports stop before this step, and it changed our list the most. We searched 15 of the gaps on Google, read the AI Overview and asked ChatGPT the same question.
None of the four brands was the main winner. Between them they reached Google's top 10 on 4 of the 15 searches. Reddit sat in the top three on 9 of them, and YouTube appeared in 12 of the 15 AI Overviews.
The health topics went to clinics and hospitals. Tech neck, sciatica and wrist pain from a mouse all showed spine centers, orthopedic practices and hospital pages, and ChatGPT cited NHS pages for sciatica. A furniture brand would struggle to outrank them, and probably shouldn't try.
ChatGPT cited no sources at all on 10 of the 15 questions and answered from what it already knew. For "how long should you stand at a standing desk," there was no page to be cited. That means writing one won't show up in ChatGPT's answer to that exact question for now, though it can still rank on Google.
Know exactly what AI says about your competitors.
RankControl's Recon Agent monitors competitor citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Google AI Mode. See where they show up and you don't.
More posts didn't mean more wins
Autonomous is the clearest lesson in the data. Its 3,406 posts covered nearly every topic on our list, often dozens of times over, with 201 posts matching "gaming" alone. It reached Google's top 10 for 1 of the 15 gap searches, at seventh for "standing desk height."
Uplift won with far less. It ranked second for "standing desk cable management" and second for "standing desk weight capacity," and the AI Overview cited Uplift on both. Those are questions a desk maker can answer better than anyone, because the answer lives in its own specs.
We call this the owner test. A gap is worth filling when your product team could answer it better than the pages currently ranking. Cable routing on a sit-stand frame passes. Tech neck doesn't.
Step 6: Turn what's left into a short list
After all five checks, here's the list we'd hand Vari's content team.
- Standing desk cable management, with photos of Vari's own trays and routing.
- Standing desk height, as a chart by the user's height.
- How long to stand at a standing desk, citing published research on sit-stand time.
- Standing desk weight capacity, with real load ratings per frame.
- Standing desk wobble, covering why it happens and how frame design reduces it.
- Dual monitor setup on a standing desk, since Vari already ranks for dual monitor arms.
That's six pages out of 29 gaps. Each one passes the owner test and has a buyer close to a purchase. Forums hold several of them today, which tells you a clear, specific page has room to rank.
The backlink gap, briefly
We also listed the sites that link to Uplift, Branch and Autonomous but not to Vari. There were 61.
Most were coupon sites, link shorteners, directories and scrapers. About ten were real, including Dwell, House Digest, AnandTech, the Bogleheads forum and the Relay FM podcast network. Those ten are the backlink gap worth working, and the other fifty-odd aren't worth an email.
Where the best gaps come from
Competitors only show you the gaps they've noticed. In an r/bigseo thread on finding content gaps, one marketer said keyword volume finds the gaps competitors already know about. Another said they mine support tickets, sales calls and forum threads instead.
A reply in a similar r/content_marketing thread put it simply. If people keep asking something and Google's answers are poor, that's the gap.
Content Gap Analysis: How Do You Do It?
I often find that some of the best content ideas come from questions users are asking but websites aren't answering properly. Whether it's keyword research, competitor analysis, Reddit, or customer feedback, everyone seems to have a differe...
So add one more source to your list. Pull the questions from your own support inbox and reviews, then run them through steps 3 to 5 like any other gap. Our guide to a content audit covers checking the pages you already have before you add new ones.
What this takes each month
Here's a rough budget for running this on one market, by my estimate.
| Task | Hours |
|---|---|
| Pull and clean competitor sitemaps | 1 to 2 |
| Group pages into topics | 3 to 5 |
| Check your own rankings and search volume | 2 to 3 |
| Search each gap and read the results | 3 to 4 |
| Backlink gap review | 1 to 2 |
| Write the short list and briefs | 1 to 2 |
| Total for the first run | 11 to 18 |
After the first run, plan two to three hours a month to catch what competitors publish next.
Doing it yourself or handing it off
You can run every step of this by hand. Or RankControl can take the ongoing part. It scans your competitors' content every week, tracks which competitors ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Google AI Mode cite for your buying questions, and writes the articles that close the gaps once you approve them, while you focus on your product.
26 content formats. Published on your domain. Matched to your brand.
Guides, comparisons, listicles, case studies, and more. RankControl generates content that gets cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Google AI Mode.
