More than ever before, creating content is becoming more popular. In fact, 72% of marketers are making more content this year than in previous years. Many experts use this strategy to find what’s missing from their web pages or bits of information.
Do you want to generate 100, or even 1000+ ideas for blogs, articles, and social media posts in under 3 minutes without putting in a lot of effort?
This method can help you save a lot of time, effort, and money. It may also help you take control of all the keywords in your sector systematically.
What makes this possible? Look at the power of content gap analysis!
Let me explain:
What Is A Content Gap Analysis?
To make a difference, you need more than just a good plan for your content and high-quality, detailed material. You also have to find where your content might be missing important information.
Analyzing content gaps is a way to discover what ideas are absent on your website or in your material. Basically, this helps you find words that your competitors use successfully, but your site doesn’t. It’s the quickest way to get lots of ideas for your content. Here are some of the best practices for content gap analysis:
a.) Look at the first page on Google
b.) Use tools like SEMrush.
c.) Review your content
Many companies or people using SEO create content to rank on Google’s first page. To do this wisely, check the existing content for your main keywords. Analyzing the first page for those keywords helps find gaps you can fill in your own content.
A great place to find these gaps is within your own content. Content audits uncover which parts of your website’s content are not performing well.
If you’re unsure about what to look for, here are some common content gaps to improve:
a.) Freshness of the content
b.) Completeness
c.) Ease of use
d.) Unanswered questions
e.) Intent to buy
Check your content for these aspects, and if they are absent, add them. You can create new material or update old content to improve it for ranking purposes.
As per a study by Ahrefs, only about 5.7% of pages make it to the top 10 search results within a year of being published. This indicates that getting a high ranking not only requires time but also calls for evaluating your content even a year after it’s published. Optimizing both your old and new content is a crucial part of analyzing content gaps.
Why Is Content Gap Analysis Important?
Each day, people who might be interested in what you offer are searching for information. It’s really important to know who your audience is, and you can do this by figuring out what they’re looking for online. This is true no matter if they’re just starting to think about buying or if they’re ready to make a decision.
Actually, most of the popular searches, around 70.87%, are just one or two words long and get searched more than 10,000 times a month.
Now, let me explain the different steps a person takes when they’re thinking about buying something:
The buyer’s journey is the path a buyer takes before making a purchase. People rarely buy on the spur of the moment. Before purchasing a product or service, a process is normally followed. In fact, B2B buyers can spend up to 90% of their buying journey merely learning about a service or product.
The stages of a buyer’s journey are as follows:
a.) Awareness State: You realize you need a product or service.
b.) Considerations Stage: At this point, you start looking into different options to solve your problem and find the right product or service. This might involve watching videos and reading reviews.
c.) Decision Stage: In this phase, you assess and choose the best place to make your purchase.
Each phase is linked with keyword possibilities like “purchase (insert product)” or “*(product) reviews.” These key phrases play a crucial role in delivering valuable content to the appropriate audience when they need it.
If you lack content that addresses what your audience wants to know, they might turn to your competitors and make purchases there instead. This can reduce your chances of converting visitors into customers.
To establish your website as a trusted source in your field, make sure it tackles important topics in your industry or solves significant problems for your audience.
Keep an eye on your website statistics using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to figure out which content is effective and which isn’t.
Google likes and values authoritative websites and rewards them with free traffic. Since satisfying Google’s algorithm is a crucial part of SEO, the top three SEO goals for marketers are successful content marketing to enhance brand awareness, establish credibility and trust, and educate their consumers.
According to a Backlinko study, the top result in Google’s organic search has an average click-through rate (CTR) of 31.7%. So, by following this process, you can discover content ideas that will assist you in becoming the leading site in your market.
Here are some benefits of doing a content gap analysis:
a.) Helps you map your buyer’s journey
b.) Pinpoints your main content goals
c.) Aids you in checking out your competitors’ material
d.) Helps you with market research
e.) Guides you on where to fill in the gaps
As mentioned before, grasping the different stages of your buyer’s journey lets you figure out demographics, interests, and needs. Then, recognize these phases and craft content that addresses the questions the same buyer is likely to ask at each stage of their journey.
Sending surveys to possible clients and industry experts will assist you in getting the information you need to understand your audience better. It’s also smart to figure out where your desired clients shop, what they like, and what content they get from similar sources.
Examining your main competitors’ websites to see how they navigate the buyer’s journey is completely okay. Identify what they excel at, then strive to enhance those aspects.
Attract More Sales With Content Gap Analysis
One big problem we often see with most websites is they focus only on terms or phrases that customers search for right before making a purchase. These are usually on sales or review pages.
While it’s great to target these end-of-buyer-cycle keywords, if you only focus on them, you’ll miss out on a lot of potential search traffic!
A Hubspot survey found that 60% of marketers measure how well their content marketing works by looking at sales. That’s why creating content is so important, and if you can fill content gaps, you’ll be able to make more content that brings in money.
Final Thoughts
Numerous marketers and business owners often make a mistake by focusing solely on pages meant for making money or educational blog posts to attract readers. While both are essential, it’s crucial to have content that connects the stages of a buyer’s journey, starting from when they first realize a problem to when they decide to make a purchase.
Analyzing the gaps in your current content strategy through a content gap analysis is vital. This helps you create new content that not only attracts visitors but also guides them toward making a purchase. It also lets you discover new keyword opportunities based on what your competitors are or aren’t targeting.
Analyzing your existing content and creating a plan to connect with people through various channels is what we call a content gap analysis.
This process helps you generate high-quality content that can transform even disinterested readers into customers ready to make a purchase.
Author: Christopher Smith
SEO and linkbuilding expert. More than 7 years of work in the field of website search engine optimization, specialist in backlink promotion. Head of linkbuilding products at GREAT Guest Posts, a global linkbuilding platform. He regularly participates in SEO conferences and also hosts webinars dedicated to website optimization, working with various marketing tools, strategies and trends of backlink promotion.
