Prospects: Keyword, Content & AIO Gap Analysis
Prospects scans competitors for keyword gaps (they rank, you don't), content gaps (they outrank you) and AIO gaps, scores each by opportunity, and lets you create, optimize, brief or track them singly or in bulk.
Prospects is NitroShock's gap analysis tool: it scans your competitors and surfaces the keywords they rank for that you don't, the content working for them that you lack, and the AI Overview citations they hold that you could contest. Every find lands as an actionable prospect card you can research, turn into content briefs, track, or dismiss.
Running a Scan
Open your project's Prospects tab and start a scan against your competitors (add them in the Competitors tab first). Pick a scan depth:
| Depth | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Standard | Top 200 results, volume 50+ |
| Deep | Top 500 results, volume 10+ |
| Max | Top 1000 results, full long-tail |
Standard depth is the right default: it captures the head and middle of a competitor's keyword profile. Reach for Deep or Max when you're mining long-tail content ideas or the standard scan came back thin. The cost is confirmed before the scan runs, and each competitor is billed only when its scan succeeds.
The Three Gap Types
- Keyword gaps - terms a competitor ranks for where you don't appear. The raw opportunity list.
- Content gaps - keywords you both rank for where the competitor outranks you. These are optimization targets for a page you already have.
- AIO gaps - keywords a competitor ranks for and you don't, where the results page shows an AI Overview.
Prospects also carry SERP-feature flags - AI Overview, featured snippet, People Also Ask, video, top stories, discussion - so you can filter for opportunities with a specific feature to win.
Easy wins counts prospects with a difficulty of 25 or less where you are not yet on page one.
Working the Prospect List
Each prospect shows the keyword with its metrics and offers actions:
- Track - add it to the Rank Tracker to monitor your position as you go after it.
- Row actions - each row has a main button, Create for new topics or Optimize for content gaps, plus a menu with Content brief, Generate meta tags, Build FAQ schema, Find related keywords, Send to Campaign Architect, Add to rank tracker and Beat Competitor. AI actions charge credits when you run them, and the cost is shown first.
- Win it - rows whose results show a People Also Ask box get a Win it button, which builds FAQ schema for that question.
- Dismiss - clear prospects you won't pursue so the list stays a work queue, not an archive.
AI clustering groups related prospects into topic clusters, so fifty scattered keywords become a handful of coherent content targets. Every scan groups them automatically; Smart cluster runs an AI pass for tighter groups and charges credits.
Each row shows Type, Intent, Vol., KD, CPC, Comp. (the competitor's position and URL), Yours and Opp. Filter by intent, difficulty band, volume range, competitor and SERP feature, and sort by Opportunity, Volume, KD (easiest first) or the competitor's position.
The Opportunity score weighs volume, difficulty, CPC and intent, then scales by how far behind the competitor you are; it is zero when you already outrank them. Select several rows to run Create, Optimize, Briefs, FAQs, Track or Dismiss in bulk. Track asks which tracking target to use and can check rankings straight away.
Competitor Keywords
Every scan also banks the competitor keywords it saw into the Competitor Keywords sub-tab of your project's Keywords tab, at no extra cost. Even prospects you never action remain searchable raw material: select any of them later and add them to a keyword list or push them to the Rank Tracker. See Building Keyword Lists.
A Practical Workflow
- Add your 3 to 5 real competitors in the Competitors tab.
- Run a Standard scan across them.
- Filter to AIO gaps first (the freshest opportunity class), then work keyword gaps by volume.
- Cluster what's left, and turn the best clusters into briefs with the row actions.
- Track everything you decide to pursue, and re-scan monthly to catch new movement.
FAQ
What does a scan cost?
Credits are charged per competitor, and the rate rises with depth (Standard, Deep, Max). The exact total is shown before the scan runs.
Where do competitors come from?
The scan window lists every competitor on the project's Competitors tab (tracked ones are pre-checked) and any domain seen in your Rank Tracker competitor data. You can also type a domain under Add domain manually.
Do repeated scans duplicate prospects?
No. Re-scanning updates existing prospects and adds new ones; stale prospects for the scanned competitors are cleaned up.
Does saving competitor keywords cost extra?
No. They are saved for free as part of every scan.