athina-ai/seo-opportunity-finder

SEO Opportunity Finder

Identify the highest-leverage content gaps between your site and competitors. Combines a crawl of your existing content with competitor keyword/traffic analysis to surface a prioritized list of posts worth writing.

Core principle: Don't start from a blank keyword list. Start by knowing what you have, then find what competitors have that you don't — and pick the gaps most likely to convert.

When to Use

• "Find SEO content gaps vs our competitors"
• "What topics should we write about to rank?"
• "We're starting a blog — where should we focus first?"
• "What keywords are [competitor] ranking for that we're missing?"

Phase 0: Intake

1. Your website URL (e.g., https://yourcompany.com)
2. 2-3 competitor URLs to compare against
3. Primary ICP — who are you trying to attract? (This filters for commercial intent vs. general traffic)
4. Any topics/keyword themes that are definitely in scope? (Optional — helps prioritize output)

Phase 1: Catalog Your Existing Content

Build an inventory of the target site's current pages and posts:

1. Fetch sitemap.xml (check /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml, robots.txt for Sitemap: directives)
2. Fall back to RSS feeds (/feed, /blog/feed) or blog index crawl if no sitemap
3. Extract: all blog post titles and URLs, inferred topics/themes per post, estimated content age

This prevents recommending content you've already written.

Phase 2: Analyze Competitor SEO Footprint

For each competitor domain, pull SEO metrics:

1. Domain overview — authority score, organic traffic estimate, top ranking keywords (via Apify Semrush scraper if APIFY_API_TOKEN is set)
2. Top pages — highest-traffic pages and their primary keywords
3. Keyword categories — which topic clusters they're winning in

If Apify data is limited, supplement with web search probes:

• site:[competitor] for indexed page count
• Search target keywords and note which competitors rank where
• SimilarWeb free tier for traffic estimates

Phase 3: Identify Gaps

Compare your content inventory (Phase 1) against competitor keyword/topic coverage (Phase 2):

Gap Classification

| Type | Definition | Priority | |------|------------|----------| | Hard gap | Competitor has a page/post on topic, you have nothing | High | | Soft gap | You have content on topic but it's thin (< 500 words, old, no depth) | Medium | | Positioning gap | Competitor owns a keyword cluster that maps to your ICP's exact problem | High | | Informational gap | High traffic, low commercial intent — good for awareness, not conversion | Low |

Commercial Intent Filter

For each gap topic, score commercial intent (1-5):

• 5 — Directly maps to your product (e.g., "best AI SDR tools for startups")
• 4 — Problem-aware but not product-specific (e.g., "how to scale outbound SDR")
• 3 — Adjacent pain point (e.g., "cold email open rates benchmark 2026")
• 2 — Educational, tangential (e.g., "what is lead scoring")
• 1 — Generic traffic, low conversion potential

Prioritize gaps with score ≥ 3.

Phase 4: Synthesize & Output

Produce a prioritized opportunity table + editorial brief starters:

# SEO Opportunity Report — [Your Company] vs [Competitors]
Generated: [DATE]

## Your Content Snapshot
- Total indexed pages: [N]
- Blog posts: [N]
- Main topic clusters: [list]

## Competitor Benchmarks
| Domain | DR | Est. Monthly Organic Traffic | Top Keyword Clusters |
|--------|----|-----------------------------|----------------------|
| [comp1] | [X] | [X] | [topics] |
| [comp2] | [X] | [X] | [topics] |

## Top 10 Content Opportunities

### 1. [Topic/Title Suggestion]
- **Keyword target:** [keyword phrase]
- **Why it matters:** [what problem it solves for ICP]
- **Competitor owning it:** [competitor URL]
- **Est. monthly searches:** [range]
- **Commercial intent score:** [1-5]
- **Recommended format:** [listicle / how-to / comparison / landing page]
- **Estimated effort:** [hours or word count target]

### 2. [Topic/Title Suggestion]
...

## Quick Wins (update existing posts)

| Your Post | Issue | What to Add |
|-----------|-------|-------------|
| [URL] | [thin/outdated] | [recommendation] |

## Recommended Content Calendar (Next 90 Days)

| Month | Post | Intent Score | Est. Traffic Potential |
|-------|------|-------------|----------------------|
| Month 1 | [post 1] | [score] | [range] |
| Month 1 | [post 2] | [score] | [range] |
| Month 2 | [post 3] | [score] | [range] |
...

Save to the current working directory or wherever the user prefers.

Cost

| Component | Cost | |-----------|------| | Site content catalog | Free (sitemap crawl) | | SEO domain analyzer (per competitor) | ~$1-3 (Apify Semrush scraper) | | Traffic analyzer (supplement) | ~$0.10-0.50 (web search probes) | | Total per run | ~$3-10 for 3 competitors |

Tools Required

• Apify API token — APIFY_API_TOKEN env var (for Semrush/Ahrefs data; free web search probes work without it)
• Web search and web fetch capabilities

Trigger Phrases

• "Find our SEO content gaps"
• "What should we write about to rank?"
• "Compare our content coverage to [competitor]"
• "Run SEO opportunity finder for [client]"