PR’s guide to GEO content strategy | Presspage

 

PR teams need pretty thick skin.

There is always something that could ruin your day: a spokesperson casually inventing a new company position mid-interview, legal returning a statement after the news cycle has moved on, or a regional team resurrecting messaging you buried twelve months ago. If you let every one of those things derail you, nothing would ever get done.

AI visibility adds the latest irritation to the list.

You can publish relevant content, earn coverage, build authority around a topic, and still watch ChatGPT cite your competitor instead of you. Is that easy to get annoyed over? Totally. But there’s a useful lesson in there if you know where to look.

Not getting the citation tells you something your keyword rankings won’t: AI has found enough public evidence to associate your competitor with that topic, and not enough to do the same for you. That’s a content gap - congratulations, sort of.

Spotting those gaps is an important part of a GEO content strategy because it gives you a clearer list of next steps for strengthening your presence around the topics that matter most for your brand.

In this guide, we’ll show you how GEO content gaps differ from SEO gaps, and how to turn them into practical content opportunities with a simple three-step workflow.

But first, a definition.

 

What is a content gap analysis?

A content gap analysis helps you find topics your competitors are covering more effectively than you are.

Traditionally, you got those answers by looking at search performance and investigating what keywords competitors ranked for, what pages they created, and where you could publish something better.

For example, a hospital network might have noticed that competitors ranked for searches around cybersecurity preparedness, while its own site barely addressed the topic. That gap then pointed to a need for creating a new explainer, expert interview, or data-led story.

That approach still has its place. But AI systems, with their habit of pulling a mix of owned content, earned media, and third-party sources when someone asks them a question, make it possible for your competitor to shape an answer without ever outranking you in search.

That means your content gap analysis now needs to uncover two things: where you’re missing from search, AND where you’re missing from the AI answer itself.

 

SEO vs. GEO content gaps: What's different?

SEO and GEO content gaps point to different visibility problems.

Using the same hospital example, an SEO-driven content gap analysis might show that competitors rank for cybersecurity preparedness and which pages are earning that visibility, while you don’t. Instead, a GEO content gap reveals which AI answers repeatedly cite a competitor’s breach-response research, quote its CISO, or rely on an industry article featuring its data.

In other words, the reason you’re missing can come down to different problems. In SEO, the gap might be a missing page or poor keyword targeting. In GEO, it could be weaker third-party validation, less citable evidence, or simply not enough clear public information connecting your brand to the topic.

 

 

PR and comms teams shouldn’t underestimate the importance of securing AI visibility. Muck Rack’s 2026 analysis of more than 25 million AI-cited links found that 84% of citations came from earned media, with journalistic articles alone accounting for 27%. That means the coverage, experts, and third-party validation PR teams already work to secure can directly influence the sources AI has available to build its answers.

Why a one-time content audit can’t catch an AI citation gap

Now for the annoying part.

Unlike traditional search, AI visibility doesn’t sit still long enough for you to take one snapshot and call the job done.

The sources AI systems cite change as new content is published, fresh coverage appears, and your own messaging evolves - not to mention the fact that the platforms themselves are changing too.

To put that into perspective: In February 2025, Google AI Overviews appeared across roughly 31% of its tracked queries compared to 48% in February of the following year, meaning a content gap you identify today could look starkly different a few months from now.

Instead, you should treat the analysis as an ongoing workflow with three steps:

• Understand where you’re currently visible
• Compare that position with competitors
• Identify what you need to do differently

 

A 3-step workflow for finding (and closing) your content gaps

Those three steps are the backbone of the workflow. The aim is to keep it practical enough to apply to your day-to-day processes. Here’s how to work through them, followed by a comprehensive example so you can see exactly what the analysis could look like.

 

Step 1: Know your current citation share

Start with a small set of topics you genuinely want your brand to be associated with. Then turn each topic into a handful of realistic questions a customer, journalist, or stakeholder might ask.

Run the same questions through the main AI systems your audience is likely to use, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

For each prompt, record:

• Whether your brand appears in the answer
• Which competitors are mentioned instead
• Which sources are cited
• Whether those sources are owned, earned, or third-party
• Whether the information about your brand is accurate and current

Keep the wording of your prompts consistent and note the date you checked them. Even a simple spreadsheet with 10-20 priority prompts is enough to give you a useful baseline.

 

Step 2: Work out why competitors are getting cited instead

Once you know where your brand is missing out on valuable AI citations, focus on the competitors that appear most often across those same prompts.

Run the same questions again and inquire more deeply by opening the cited sources and noting down what is giving that competitor an advantage.

For each recurring competitor, check:

• Which pages or publications are being cited
• Whether those citations come from owned content, earned media, or third-party sources
• Whether they have original research, statistics, or proprietary data
• Which spokespeople or experts keep appearing
• Whether the same messages or proof points show up across several sources
• How recently those sources were published or updated

Then group those findings by topic.

You might discover, for example, that one competitor dominates a topic because its annual research report is repeatedly referenced, while another is benefiting from a spokesperson who has been quoted across several industry publications.

That distinction tells you whether the gap is primarily about content, evidence, expertise, or third-party validation, rather than simply telling you what you already know - that a competitor is more visible.

 

Step 3: Turn each gap into a concrete comms action

Now turn those findings into a short opportunity list your team can actually work from.

For every topic where you’re underrepresented, write down three things:

• What’s missing: the evidence, source, perspective, or coverage your competitor has and you don’t
• What you can create or influence: the specific comms asset or activity that could close that gap
• How you’ll measure it: the prompts and AI platforms you’ll recheck afterwards

That could mean:

• Publishing original data where competitors are being cited for research
• Creating a clearer newsroom explainer around a topic AI struggles to associate with you
• Developing a stronger spokesperson point of view and pitching it to relevant media
• Updating outdated pages or FAQs that still feed old information into AI answers
• Adding more specific statistics, proof points, or quotable facts to press releases
• Building earned coverage around a claim that currently exists only on your own website

Then rerun the original prompt set after your new content or coverage has had time to enter the public information ecosystem. Look for changes, such as more mentions, stronger source diversity, or more accurate descriptions of your brand.

 

Walking through the 3-step workflow: An example Imagine a fictional European airline called AeroVale that wants to be associated with lower-carbon aviation.   Step 1: Establish current citation share The comms team builds a small prompt set around questions like: Which airlines are making the most progress on sustainable aviation fuel? How are European airlines reducing emissions? What should travelers know about lower-carbon flying? They run those prompts through ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. AeroVale appears occasionally, but one competitor shows up far more often and is cited across several answers.   Step 2: Find out why competitors are being cited The cited sources reveal the problem. The competitor has published specific Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) targets, put its sustainability lead forward in trade media, and earned coverage around a new fuel partnership. AeroVale has similar initiatives underway, but much of the detail sits in annual reports and corporate sustainability documents that haven’t been mentioned in broader coverage. Rather than pointing to a need to create “more sustainability content” on a broader level, the team now knows they need more visible, usable proof.   Step 3: Turn the gap into action The team turns that finding into a focused comms plan. They plan to: Publish clearer SAF targets and progress updates Create a newsroom explainer on its emissions strategy Build a stronger expert POV for aviation and sustainability media Add more concrete proof points to future partnership announcements Then they rerun the same prompt set over time to see whether AeroVale starts appearing more often and with stronger citations.

PRESSPAGE PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT Presspage’s AI Brand Visibility software is built to make that ongoing view manageable for comms teams. Rather than reducing AI visibility to one overall score, Presspage tracks your brand against the specific themes you want to be known for. You can see how often you appear in relevant AI answers, whether those answers describe you accurately, and how your visibility compares with named competitors. Our Content Gap Analysis feature then connects those findings to the next step: identifying where your signals are weak and surfacing publishing opportunities that could strengthen your SEO and GEO visibility. Alongside it, AI Share of Voice, Competitor AI Benchmarking, and Citation Accuracy Score help show whether the problem is visibility, competitive positioning, or simply AI repeating the wrong information about your brand. Ready to see where your brand’s AI visibility gaps are? Book a personalized demo >>>