How to Find Content Ideas with Semrush

Coming up with a list of content ideas sounds simple enough… until you suddenly need 30 that’ll impress the boss by the end of the day.

Without a strategy and the right tools, you might end up with ideas you can’t back up, recycled topics, or an uninspiring list that’ll never get approved.

Semrush offers a more realistic path to hitting your deadline with data-backed ideas geared towards results.

Starting with a Topic or Seed Keyword

This is a great place to begin when you’re starting from scratch.

As an example, we’ll choose “pour over coffee” as a seed keyword for our example company, Lost Sheep Coffee.

As we go, we’ll judge each potential idea on:

• Relevance to Lost Sheep Coffee.
• Evidence of audience demand.
• Expansion potential across blog, social, and email.

Explore Real Questions People Ask Google 

A list of ideas isn’t worth much if it doesn’t generate demand.

Keyword Magic Tool shows us the exact phrases people search on Google when they want answers.

Enter the seed keyword into Keyword Magic Tool.

Evaluate the results by looking for keywords with high search volume, but low keyword difficulty(KD%). 

Adding a KD% filter helps you spot keywords that have a realistic chance of ranking.

Next, switch to the Questions tab.

This view helps you find the concerns, comparisons, and how-to queries people already search. For this topic, there are over 1,145 different question-based keywords. 

Question-based keywords make strong starting points for blog posts, FAQ sections, newsletter content, and short social videos.

You can refine this even further by adding your domain to Personal Keyword Difficulty.

So, based on all of the Keyword Magic data, you can start to pull some ideas:

• Best pour-over coffee maker
• Pour over vs drip coffee 
• Pour over vs french press
• Coffee grinder for pour-over coffee
• How to brew pour-over coffee
• How much coffee for pour over?

That’s a strong start. You have a product-led angle, some comparison topics, a beginner's guide, and a practical question.

But it’s still a long way from the kind of content list that keeps your calendar full and stops us scrambling for ideas every week.

Expand Your List with Topic Research

Enter the seed topic into Topic Research.

This tool helps you move beyond exact keyword phrasing and into broader themes, headlines, and related questions that people already care about.

Start by reviewing the topic cards and headlines. To dive deeper, click “show more” at the bottom of the card to reveal topic data, additional headlines, relevant questions and related search terms.

Next, open the Mind Map view.

This layout makes it easier to spot connections between subtopics. Click any of the branching ideas to reveal more data, headlines, questions and search terms.

Based on Topic Research, you can add five more ideas to the list:

• French press vs pour-over: what’s the difference?
• How to grind for pour-over coffee
• Coffee basics: brewing ratios
• One cup pour-over coffee pouches
• Pour over coffee for beginners

Find Relevant Reddit Threads That Rank on Google

Search tools tell you what your audience looks for online, but Reddit can show you how they actually talk about those topics.

To find these discussions in Semrush, open Organic Rankings and enter “reddit.com” as the domain.

Next, go to the Positions tab and use the keyword filter to narrow the report using phrases from your growing list, such as “pour-over coffee,” “best pour-over coffee maker,” or” pour-over coffee for beginners.”

Now look for threads ranking on page one, or close to it. 

When a Reddit discussion ranks well in Google, that’s a strong signal. It usually means people care enough about the topic to discuss it on Reddit and also search for it on Google.

Read through the Reddit posts to learn more about the exact wording, objections, and frustrations people mention when discussing the topic naturally.

This Reddit research surfaced:

• Why is pour-over better than a machine?
• Do you have to use special coffee for a pour-over?
• Is pour-over coffee worth the work?
• Where should I start with pour-over coffee?

Use Social Content AI for Social-Ready Angles

Social Content AI gives you fresh, on-brand social content ideas you can quickly adapt into posts, visuals, and videos.

Enter the domain into Social Content AI.

First, you'll see top news by category, which surfaces relevant trending stories related to the business.

Below that is ideas by topic. This view is useful when you want more evergreen or campaign-style inspiration.

From Social Content AI, you can add these ideas to your list:

• Meet the farmer behind your morning brew
• How to create cafe-quality cold brew at home
• Ethical certifications: what do they mean to you
• Alternative coffee preparation methods
• Coffee pairings you never thought of before

Find Content Ideas from Competitor Success

Now, it’s time to scan your competitors’ content to see what already performs in the market (and what you’re missing out on)

Start by entering a relevant competitor domain into Top Pages.

For this competitor, you can see high traffic for some general brew guides. 

But diving a bit deeper reveals more specific guides that can inspire your list, like their French Press brew guide, or this guide to setting up a pour-over station.

You can also use Backlink Analytics to find competitor pages with the most referring domains; heavily linked content often points to high-value topics. 

From this, you can add “how to choose the right brew method for you.”

As you review competitors’ top pages, pay close attention to the kinds of content that keep showing up. 

Are they winning traffic with beginner guides, brewing method comparisons, product explainers, or more lifestyle-led coffee content?

Add a couple more ideas to your list:

• How to create New Orleans-style iced coffee
• Setting up your dream pour-over station
• How to choose the right brew method for you

Use Keyword Gap to Spot Missing and Weak Topics

Next, explore where Lost Sheep Coffee has the biggest opportunities to gain ground.

Open Keyword Gap and enter the domain alongside a few relevant competitors. Then use the filters to focus on Missing keywords.

The Missing filter shows keywords that all competitors rank for that Lost Sheep Coffee doesn't rank for at all.

The Untapped view reveals keywords that at least one of the competitors is ranking for but Lost Sheep Coffee isn’t.

Let’s look for terms that fit the brand and connect naturally to your existing list. 

Here we see a couple of new ideas:

• Ceramic pour-over coffee
• Chemex pour-over instructions
• Coffee ratio for pour-over
• Cold brew pour-over

Find Content Ideas from Your Own Domain with Visibility Overview

The last step reveals how your own domain performs in AI-driven discovery.

Open AI Visibility Overview and enter the domain. Then click the Topic Opportunities section.

This view helps us spot topics where competitors appear in AI answers but your brand doesn’t.

Click a topic to display a dropdown that reveals specific prompts, real AI responses, and the number of brands and sources mentioned in results.

This gives you your final ideas:

• How to make homemade iced coffee
• Fancy coffee drinks to make at home
• Overnight cold brew with instant coffee

Reviewing Your List of Content Ideas 

From these steps, you’ve built a strong list of 30+ pour-over coffee-related topics that you know can earn rankings and engagement for the brand.

Let’s organize the ideas into a plan your team can actually use, grouping each idea by theme, source and best-fit channel.

Build a Content Pipeline with Semrush

A good content idea isn't just something interesting. It needs to help solve your audience’s pain points and answer questions they’re actively searching for.

Scribbling down vague ideas you can’t justify as being valuable to the brand and its audience isn't making your content pipeline problem go away.

But with this repeatable Semrush workflow, you never have to worry about staring at a blank page or presenting a weak list of content ideas again.