The Automated SEO Engine, Part 2: Advanced Keyword Intelligence

This is Part 2. Part 1 explains the basic idea and the 4-step loop. If words like “impression” or “position” are new to you, start there. I explain them at the top.

In Part 1 we used Google Search Console to see which searches your site already appears for. That only gets you so far. It can’t show you anything your site hasn’t appeared for yet.

This part is about finding those missing topics: searches people make that nobody has answered well, topics your competitors win that you don’t, and real questions people are asking online. At the end, we also check that the pages you publish actually worked.

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Going Beyond Search Console

Search Console only lists searches your site has already shown up for. That means it can’t tell you about all the people searching for things you’ve never written about.

To find those, you need three other sources.

1. Find searches nobody has answered well

Google has a free keyword tool called Keyword Planner. You give it a starting topic (called a seed term), for example "EU VAT compliance", and it gives you back related searches and how many people look for each one every month. You can pull this data automatically with a tool like gum.

What you’re looking for:

• Searches with 500 or more monthly searches. That means enough people want the answer to make it worth your time.
• Low difficulty or low ad prices. If it’s cheap to advertise on, or the tool marks it as easy, it usually means few big companies are competing for it.

Put together, that’s a search that plenty of people make but nobody has answered properly. That’s a gap you can fill.

2. See what your competitors rank for

Competitors are a good source of ideas. There are tools that show you which searches bring traffic to a competitor’s website. Compare that list to your own. Any search where they show up and you don’t is a gap.

    [ Competitor A ]                   [ Competitor B ]
    Ranks #2 for:*                     Ranks #4 for:*
  "ZUGFeRD format"                   "Peppol network API"
         │                                  │
         └─────────────────┬────────────────┘
                           ▼
                   [ YOUR DOMAIN ]
                  Ranks: UNINDEXED
                           │
                           ▼
                 [ ACTIONABLE GAP ]
           Build targeted pages to capture
          their long-tail organic footprint

*Example terms and ranks, made up to illustrate the idea.

(“Unindexed” here just means Google doesn’t show your site for those searches at all.)

Here’s how to use that list without wasting time:

1. Find the searches that bring them the most traffic. A competitor’s top searches usually bring in about 80% of their visitors. Those are the ones to look at first.
2. Don’t go after the biggest ones. If a huge company is #1 for a very broad search like “invoicing software”, you won’t beat them head on. They’re bigger and Google trusts them more.
3. Go after the small, specific searches instead. Look for narrow topics where they rank on page 1 only because Google couldn’t find a better answer. If you write a focused article on exactly that topic, your smaller site can beat their general page.

3. Read what real people are asking

People often describe their problems online before anyone notices there’s demand for the answer. Good places to look:

• The “People Also Ask” boxes on Google (the list of related questions that appears in search results).
• Reddit threads.
• Other online forums and discussions about your topic. An example would be someone asking about “DATEV export rounding errors”.

These people are usually stuck and want a fix right now. If you turn their question into a clear, step-by-step guide, you reach people who are ready to act, and you do it before your competitors have noticed the demand. SEO tools often don’t show these searches yet, because not enough people have searched for them to count.

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Checking That It Worked

Publishing a page isn’t the end. You need to check whether it’s doing its job. Here’s the simple loop to follow after you publish a new page or update an old one:

1. Wait 7 to 14 days, then check. Google needs time to visit and process your new page. After that, look in Search Console (with gum if you want to automate it) at the new page’s position. That shows whether it moved up.
2. If it’s better but not there yet, improve it. Say the page went from position 38 to 15*. That’s progress, but it’s still not on page 1. Add another section that answers a related question, or add two or three more links to it from your other pages.
3. Once it’s on page 1, protect it. When the page reaches positions 1 to 10, move on to Step 4 from Part 1 (protect what’s working) so the ranking doesn’t slip.

*Example numbers, for illustration only.

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We’re running this same loop for Billino, the invoicing product I’m building. If compliant invoices are something you need, come and have a look.