Not to state the obvious, but as marketers, part of our job is to create content. Whether it’s in the form of blog posts, landing pages, social media posts, emails, newsletters, and so on — there’s no way to get around it. It is a critical component of our job. And sometimes, it can be challenging to come up with new ideas or ways to iterate on old ones. With the world consuming content at lightning speed, it is becoming even more difficult to keep up with the expectation of turning out fresh content.

In the past, we’ve published excellent pieces on the Moz Blog all about content distribution and strategy, including the Whiteboard Fridays “Create High-Impact Content Using Backward Design” from Purna Virji and “How to Maximize Content” with Ross Simmonds. And, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, content ideation and inspiration can come from anywhere. 

But what if I told you that you can also use the Moz tools to mine for content ideas? Let’s dig into different ways to use the Moz tools to supplement our content planning strategies.

When supplementing or modifying your content strategy, a good place to start is by examining your existing content and finding the gaps. This can help identify new content ideas and areas where your content strategy may be missing key opportunities to thrive.

The Keyword Gap tool in Moz Pro allows you to enter your site and up to 3 competitors to see how your ranking keywords compare to those of your competitors. 

Pro tip! Not sure who your online competitors are? Or just want to confirm and scope out who they may be? Check out the True Competitor tool to find out.

Below the interactive Venn diagram, the Keyword Gap tool will provide pre-filtered lists of keywords to help you identify Keywords to improve and New keyword opportunities.

Let’s start by looking at New keyword opportunities. This list of keywords consists of those where your competitors are ranking, but you’re not. This can help you quickly identify gaps in your existing content strategy so you can make a plan to build out fresh new content.

Let’s say I’m working on building out the “best of” section of my Los Angeles foodie blog; I can filter to see keywords that include “Best” and “Los Angeles” as seen in the screenshot below. I can now see that I’m not ranking for “Best Pizza in Los Angeles,” so I may want to consider creating a blog post about this topic.

Pro tip! You can add multiple filters to your results to help surface opportunities based on niche, product, or location. You can even filter by key metrics or rank. Just click the Add Filter button! 

Have a piece that should be ranking for these keywords and isn’t? Don’t worry! Later in this article, we’ll chat about how you can identify areas for content improvement and elevation.

Spotting these content gaps can strengthen your content strategy. It can not only help spark ideas for new content but also help identify places where your content can be improved or refreshed for better performance. 

Whether you’ve been posting for years or just started building out your content, there’s no time like the present to look for ways to improve what you’ve already dedicated time to producing. Just like creating new content, refreshing your existing URLs is essential to any content strategy. 

The Keywords to Improve view in Keyword Gap is your new best friend when it comes to identifying content to refresh. After entering the sites you’d like to compare, this view will list keywords for which you and your competitors rank, but they currently outrank you.

You can then use the filter options (as I did previously) to see only specific segments of keywords. For example, I may want to see only keywords where I’m ranking on the second page or keywords where I am ranking just behind my competitor. The tool will even show you the Traffic Lift for those keywords, which is the amount of traffic Moz estimates you can gain by overtaking your competitor in the SERP.

As I can see in the example below, my competitor is outranking me for multiple keywords related to “things to do in Los Angeles” — I can now take a look at my page that is ranking for this keyword and see if there is an opportunity to update it to gain a competitive edge. I stand to gain an estimated additional 2700 visits a month if I can outrank my competitor.

Now we’ve looked at how you can use Keyword Gap to identify new content opportunities and content you may want to take another look at, but what are some additional ways I can really make my content stand out? Elevating your existing content is like polishing your jewelry — it helps keep it in tip-top shape, extends the piece's life, and keeps it relevant to your “collection.” There are many ways to identify and update content in your existing library, but here are two ways to get started (and find new content opportunities in the process).

First, let’s investigate featured snippet opportunities. Once I’ve created a Campaign in Moz Pro and are tracking keywords over time, I will have access to the SERP Features section. This part of the tool tracks SERP features included in the search results for my tracked keywords, including featured snippets.

Exploring which of my tracked keywords have featured snippets in the SERP can help me identify opportunities for content refresh and new pieces of content. When looking for opportunities for a content refresh, I can seek out keywords where I am ranking on the first page of the SERP but am not included in the featured snippet. In this case, the tool will provide insight into what page is included in the featured snippet and my current rank. This can make it easier to spot high-value pages with a chance of moving into that coveted top spot of the SERP.

Alternatively, looking at which of my tracked keywords include a featured snippet but where I am not ranking on the first page (or at all) can help to identify possible opportunities for creating new, high-value content. We’ll just want to be sure to optimize for the featured snippet right from the start. 

Pro tip: Export a CSV of the SERP Features data in your Campaign to sort and filter outside the app. If a SERP feature is marked Included in the CSV, it means your site is included in that particular feature. If it’s marked true it means the SERP feature is present for that keyword, but your tracked site isn’t included. 

Next, I’ll pop over to the Page Optimization section of my Campaign. Although the primary purpose of this feature is to illustrate how well-optimized a page is for a particular keyword, there is a hidden gem that can help identify content refresh opportunities, new content ideas, and tangential topics. The Content Suggestions tab will list keywords and topics often used on the top-ranking pages for the keyword I’m optimizing for.

In the above example, I’m optimizing for the keyword “best pillow.” Looking at the content suggestions, it may be a good idea to include information about what types of sleepers would benefit from each pillow listed (like “side sleepers”) or the benefits of different materials pillows are made out of (like “foam pillows”). These content suggestions can also help me find ideas for other pieces of content that are tangentially related. For example, I may want to consider writing different blog posts targeted to each type of sleeper.

So I’ve dug deep into my own content, but what if I want to gain insight into what types of content are ranking in the SERP? After all, one of the best places to get ideas for content is to see what kind of content is already out there and performing. Top Competing Content can provide insight into what is performing well by listing content your competitors are outranking you with along the Content URL and Top Ranking Keywords. 

In this example, I can see that one of the competitors I’ve entered ranks well for keywords related to mattress foundations. When I click through to the ranking page I can see that it is a comprehensive buying guide that outlines the types of foundations they have, their product specs, and reviews. I can now look at my own ranking content and ask myself:

• Is this a topic I can better cover on my site? 
• Can I improve existing content or add a different perspective, format, or content type to the space? 
• How can I reformat my content to better serve the search intent of my audience?

The possibilities are endless!

Sticking with Top Competing Content in Keyword Gap, let's see if I can spot some ideas for tangential content. As Amanda Milligan discusses in her Whiteboard Friday episode, content ideas that aren’t directly related to my product can often lead to positive outcomes like links, social shares, and brand awareness. These peripherally related topics can supplement my content strategy and help create a well-rounded library of assets.

Pro tip! You can export the Top Competing Content data to CSV to further filter, sort, and edit as needed.

Sticking with the mattress company example, let’s say I am looking for content ideas to help build out my newly launched blog. I may know that there is value in creating pieces around mattress-related topics like deciding on a mattress size or determining what firmness would be best, but what tangential content ideas can I identify in my research? The example above shows that my competitors are ranking for content related to topics like sleep calculators and what to do when you can’t sleep. These could be great opportunities for me to create new content not directly related to mattresses but still related to the sleep industry. In fact, I may have content already related to these topics that could be good candidates for a refresh based on what content is outperforming my site.

Just like content creation, keyword research is a fundamental part of SEO and marketing strategies. As you’re out there digging into things like search volume, difficulty, and SERP analysis, you may be able to uncover some hidden gems to inform your content strategy as well.

Hopping over to Keyword Explorer, I can mine for content ideas in the Keyword Suggestions section of the tool. Keyword Suggestions will provide a list of keywords related to the seed keyword entered, sorted by Relevancy to the original term. I can also apply filters, grouping preferences, and narrow by search volume to further define your results.

Let’s start by selecting the Questions filter at the top of the suggestions table. This view provides me with a list of the types of questions searchers ask in relation to my initial keyword.

In this example, consider that I work for a real estate agency and am researching content related to buying a house. Using the Questions filter will provide me with specific content ideas related to what people ask when buying a home. This can offer a gold mine of content ideas to flesh out a real estate blog or website to help clients find the information they seek.

I can even take this research one step further by grouping my keyword suggestions by lexical similarity. Just a reminder here that lexical similarity refers to how closely related or similar the keywords in the group are. Low lexical similarity will result in fewer groups with more keywords since the tool will group keywords that are less similar. 

Grouping keywords can help me identify additional keywords I may want to target and broad-match keywords that may be worth including in my content. Be mindful of over-optimizing, though! We want to avoid keyword stuffing and cannibalization since they may negatively impact rankings. That being said, consider the below example of how grouping keywords has helped to identify a few content gems. 

Using the previous example of “buying a house” as the seed keyword, I’ve grouped my keywords by low lexical similarity. Within the “how to buy a house for the first time” group, there are multiple long-tail keywords that may be great inspiration for a new piece of content for my real estate agency including “what to know when buying a house for the first time” and “how much do I need to make to buy a 400k house.” I can now take that information and create a dedicated resource or a blog post that includes information on what to consider when buying a home for the first time and what the buying process looks like, including what to expect when trying to get approved for a home loan. Imagine the inspiration you can get from digging into these suggestions even further!

Before we move on to our next treasure hunt, I want to point out the Search Intent column in Keyword Suggestions as well. This column notes the primary search intent associated with the keywords listed. This is a fantastic way to identify what type of content you should create and how Google thinks people are interacting with results related to that keyword. 

For example, the majority of the keywords in the results above are identified as Informational which makes sense since they are all related to learning more about the process of buying a home. For these keywords, content like blogs, long-form content, and informational videos would be ideal.

If I adjust my filter options to look at Top Suggestions, I will see that many of the top keywords associated with “buying a home” are Transactional or Navigational — they are related to specific sites like Zillow or topics like specific buying programs. Since these keywords are about doing something or going somewhere, the type of content I create to address them should be different. I may opt to create location pages or FAQs that address these specific topics.

So far, we’ve identified content opportunities, uncovered new ideas, and found gaps in our existing strategy. But what about our competition? What are they doing? I touched on this a bit using the Keyword Gap tool but let’s dig in further. When modifying your content strategy, it’s important to understand what your competitors are doing and what their audience is engaging with. Although you won’t have access to their traffic data, there is a way you can get an idea of what content may be driving traffic to their site. Or, at the very least, what content is of high value. This is through link analysis. Moz offers quite a few ways to do this, but I’m going to highlight a feature that can help get us started with this research.

Top Pages in Link Explorer will return a list of the pages on a site with the most backlinks. This can provide insight into the types of content people find valuable on a site — pages with more links are more valuable. This is partly because backlinks are a ranking factor. Additionally, all those links provide benefits like traffic, brand exposure, and more. 

After inputting a competitor into Top Pages, I can get an idea of which pages on their site provide the most value. In the screenshot above, I can see that this particular competitor has a lot of “best of” articles that gain a lot of links. I can now explore these pages and see if there is an opportunity to create or modify content on my own site to meet similar demands.

Pro tip: Once you’ve created your content, you can use Link Intersect to find domains and pages linking to your competitors and not to you. This can offer a great way to supplement a link building strategy!

If there’s one thing you can take away from this exploration of content ideation with Moz Pro, it’s that there are infinite ways to do it. This post only covers a handful of them; the reality is that the world (of content creation) is your oyster! The key is to find which features, tools, and processes fit best with your strategy and make them work for you. How do you use the tools to investigate new ideas? I’d love to hear about it!

Originally published in March 2023 this blog has been rewritten to include new tool insights and refreshed workflows. 

Looking for more Next Level posts? Previously we explored how to plan and run a successful client meeting.