When it comes to content development, a common problem is finding topics to write about. Keyword analysis should be able to help you get started when it comes to particular keywords to target and particular topics to write about. However, this may not be enough in the future.
Through a content gap analysis, you would be able to find content gaps in your particular market and in your own site. These content gaps are missed opportunities that should be taken advantage of and used to find content to write about that no one or not much writes about and that could help you rank in the search engine results page.
What is a content gap analysis? Does it matter? How do I perform a content gap analysis? This article is a guide to content gap analysis that will help you get started and move towards generating content that would rank you.
A content gap analysis is the assessment of existing content on a topic and determining if there are any content gaps or missed opportunities that can be exploited.
By creating content that fills these content gaps, your content is bound to rise above all existing content on the topic and, in turn, gain better ranking and more traffic.
Common types of content gaps include:
In addition, identifying content gaps that need to align with the different stages of your buyer’s journey allows you to target your potential customers at any stage of their buyer’s journey and, in turn, help you guide visitors to the point of conversion.
There are two main reasons why a content gap analysis is important, the first is that it helps you find holes in your content that can be filled in order to gain more traffic to your site, increase your site’s authority, and get better visibility and search engine rankings.
In addition, it helps you communicate more effectively with your target audience by providing them with content, wherever they are in their buyer’s journey. Not all visitors to your site are ready to buy or subscribe. Most of the time, they look for information, compare options, look for the best deals and solutions.
Filling these content gaps in a buyer’s journey, whether in the awareness, consideration, decision, or funnel success stages, not only helps you increase your conversions, but also gain more traffic to your site due to the more comprehensive content available on your site. Apart from these, you also increase your search visibility and rank higher for your keywords and for more terms.
Running out of content to write? A content gap analysis also helps identify high-value content and topic perspectives. This helps you get the big picture and learn more about all the keywords your rivals rank for, but you don’t. It will help you develop the appropriate content marketing methods to close the gap and get rankings for those keywords.
As you can see, you get a lot of benefits by performing a content gap analysis – gain more traffic, gain more conversions, gain more visibility on search engines, rank higher in the search engine results page, and get ideas for your content development and content management.
Now that you know the many benefits you get from a content gap analysis, let’s discuss how to perform a content gap analysis for your site.
The first thing you need to do is find out what kind of content Google ranks in the first page of the SERPs for your target keywords.
Browse their content to get a better idea of what content Google finds good enough to rank. Apart from that, look for the content gaps that exist in the best results.
These content gaps can be the ones I mentioned earlier – gaps in content freshness, content rigor, usability, and interest.
When was the content last published or updated? Do you get all the information you need from the content? Is the content provided sufficiently comprehensive or are their topics not discussed? Is the content clear and easy to understand? Is the information useful and can it be applied easily? Is the content well written and interesting? Will site visitors find it good enough to share?
Find the type of gaps on the ranking pages, and then fill those gaps with your content. Reproduce the type of classified content, and then surpass it by filling in the existing gaps.
Manually browsing sites for content gaps can be a bit tedious and time-consuming, but it’s definitely worth it and I highly recommend going through the manual process of checking results and sites.
Another option for identifying content gaps is the use of SEO tools. SEMRush and Ahrefs have particular features that can be used to analyze your competitors’ content and find content gaps that you could fill.
Using such tools can help you evolve the process and make it easier for you to identify the multiple content and keyword gaps that your site can fill.
In addition to looking at your competitors and what they’re missing, another important step in the process is to audit your own site and look for existing content gaps.
Aside from gaps in content freshness, rigor, usability, and interest, check for gaps in content that specifically targets your audience in their buyer’s journey.
Do you have content that provides information to those who are in the awareness stage? How about a comparison, a review, and a better type of articles for those on the consideration page? Is your sales page or service page effective in converting your visitors into buyers, customers, or subscribers? And finally, do you have content for the success phase that can help reassure your customers that they made the right decision by choosing you? Create content for all of this and you’re required to reach visitors at any stage they’re at, preventing visitors from falling through the cracks and guiding them to a conversion.
Apart from all this, a content audit would not only help you determine which gaps need to be filled in your site, but you would also be able to evaluate your existing content and find out what content is performing well and what is underperforming. That way, you’d have a better idea of what kind of content works specifically on your site, and then you replicate them for more success.
We have a step-by-step content audit guide that you can follow to help you in the process of auditing your own content.
Conducting market research is one of the best ways to find content that your target audience is specifically looking for. You can simply ask them what they want so you know what you can provide them that would give them value.
You can do this by conducting a market research survey and/or providing a feedback form on your site, in your email marketing campaigns, or on your social media channels. This will help you understand what questions, concerns, needs and goals are of your target customers. The following are examples of questions in the survey or feedback form:
The answers or feedback you receive will help you find a treasure trove of content ideas that match what your potential customers really need.
Earlier, I mentioned seRP analysis to be able to determine what type of content Google ranks for your keywords and to find gaps in your competitor’s content that you could fill. This last step is more in-depth in that you would browse your competitors’ sites to be able to determine what they are doing and be able to measure how your site is doing compared to theirs. This is a good way to find additional gaps that you could fill in your own content.
What content do they have that you don’t currently have? How is their sales funnel and what content did they create for each stage of the buyer’s journey? How did they set their sales page?
Note, however, that what works for their site may not work for yours. This process is mainly about getting a better idea of the other types of content and gaps available to be filled. The goal is to find cracks or gaps in your own strategy so you can find something better than what your competitors are doing.
A content gap analysis is crucial for every business owner and site, whether it’s a small site, a small business, or a multinational company. Doing a content gap analysis not only increases traffic to a site, but also has many other benefits such as increasing conversions, achieving a higher rank in search results, and generating content ideas for your content development and content marketing strategy. Regardless of the market, niche, and goals of your business or site, a content gap analysis can help you achieve them.
It takes a village to run a successful business. Several staff members contribute to the articles under this bio. You can read more about them here: full bio here.
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