Content creation is on the rise more than ever before. Actually, 72% of marketers are producing more content than they have done any other year. Many professionals are using this method to help them discover what’s missing on their web pages or in their pieces of content. 

Would you like to be able to generate 100, or even 1000+ content ideas for blogs, articles, and social media posts in less than 3 minutes without doing a ton of hard work? 

This type of strategy can save you loads of time, effort, and money. It can also help you take over all the keywords in your industry strategically. 

How is this possible? Behold, the power of the content gap analysis! 

Let me explain:

What Is A Content Gap Analysis?

To make a difference you not only need a good content strategy, and high-quality, long-form content, but you also need to be able to point out the gaps of information that are missing from your content.

A content gap analysis is a process to discover content ideas that are missing from your website or piece of content. 

Essentially this process helps you find keywords that your competitors are ranking for that your website does not. This is the easiest way to find lots of ideas on what content to create next.

Here are some of the best practices for content gap analysis:

  • Research Google’s first page 
  • Use tools such as SEMrush or services like HOTH X 
  • Perform a content audit

Most businesses or people who use any kind of SEO usually publish content with the goal of getting on Google’s first page. So, a good way of knowing what type of content gets you that rank is to research what is already there for your primary keywords. 

The HOTH has a tool that can help you with the content gap analysis process. It helps you find topics and gaps. To use it, just enter a competitor into the tool and you can see all the keywords they rank for that you don’t. 

You can then look at the first page for those keywords and search for content gaps that you could fill. 

Alternatively, if you’d like some help with performing a content gap analysis for your site (and creating the strategy, content, and ranking it), then you might be interested in our managed SEO service, HOTH X.

One of the best places to look for content gaps is within your own content. Content audits can show you which pieces of content on your website are underperforming. 

Here are some common content gaps you can optimize if you aren’t sure what to look for:

  • Content freshness
  • Thoroughness
  • Usability
  • Unanswered questions
  • Buyer’s intent 

Check some of your content for these factors, and if they are missing, add them. You could create new content or even update your old content so it’s re-optimized to drive rankings. 

An Ahrefs case study suggests that only 5.7% of pages rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication. That means not only does it take time to rank, but you need to analyze your content even a year after it’s been published. Optimizing old content (and new content) is an important step in content gap analysis.

Why Is Content Gap Analysis Important? 

Every day, potential customers are searching for answers to questions they have about your products or services. Wherever they are on the buyer’s journey, it’s important to understand your audience by using search intent and keyword research. In fact, 70.87% of keywords with more than 10,000 monthly searches consist of only one or two words. So, picking the best keywords for your content is vital to SEO success. 

Let me take a second to give you some idea of what the buyer’s journey is:

The buyer’s journey is the path that a buyer goes down before completing a purchase. People don’t usually just wake up and buy on a whim. There is usually a process that takes place before buying a product or service. In fact, B2B buyers spend up to 90% of their decision journey simply educating themselves on a service or product. 

Here are the stages of a buyer’s journey: 

Awareness State: Someone becomes aware of the fact that they need a product or service

Considerations Stage: This stage includes someone who begins to consider options to solve the issue that they need a product or service. This can sometimes include looking at videos and reviews.

Decision Stage: This stage consists of the buyer’s evaluation and deciding on the right place to make their purchase. 

Each stage has keyword opportunities connected to them such as “buy (insert product)” or *(product) reviews.” These key phrases are an important aspect of targeting the right audience with quality content at the right time. 

If you don’t have content that addresses your target audience’s questions, then they will probably find your competition and end up buying from them instead, which then lowers your conversions. 

If your site covers important topics in your industry or solves major pain points your customer may have, your site will become the authority in your niche. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on your metrics by using Google Analytics and Google Search Console so you can see what kind of content is working for you and what isn’t. 

Google loves and trusts authority sites and rewards them with tons of free traffic. Because pleasing Google’s algorithm is such an important part of SEO, marketers say that their top three SEO goals are to have successful content marketing focused on generating brand awareness, building credibility and trust, and educating their audiences. 

Actually, a Backlinko study suggests that the #1 result in Google’s organic search results has an average CTR of 31.7%. So, by doing this process, you’ll be able to identify ideas for content that will help you become the #1 site in your industry. 

Here are some benefits of performing a content gap analysis: 

  • Help you map your buyer’s journey
  • Determine your primary content goals
  • Helps you research your competitor’s content
  • Helps you conduct market research
  • Shows you where to fill in the gaps

As I mentioned, by understanding the different stages of your buyer’s journey, you can identify things like demographics, interests, and needs. Then, identify these steps and come up with content that answers the questions the same buyer will likely ask during each step of their journey. 

Interviewing your potential clients and industry experts by sending out surveys will help you get the feedback you need to better help you understand your audience. It may also be a good practice to find out where your potential customers buy from, what type of interests they have, and what kind of content they are getting from relevant sources. 

It is perfectly acceptable to spy on your top competitor’s websites just to see how they move through the buyer’s journey. Identify what they do better than you, and then improve on that. 

Attract More Sales With Content Gap Analysis 

One of the largest problems we see with most sites is that they only target end-buyer-cycle keywords, meaning keywords that customers are searching for right before they purchase.

These are usually in the form of sales pages or review pages.

End-buyer-cycle keywords are great to target, but if you only target these, you’ll miss out on the vast majority of the search traffic that’s out there!

In fact, a Hubspot study suggests that 60% of marketers measure the success of their content marketing strategy through sales. That’s what makes content creation so important, and if you can expand on content gaps, then you can create more content that drives revenue. 

How Does A Content Gap Analysis Work?

To perform a content gap analysis on existing content, you’re going to need the proper tools used to research the rankings of your competitor’s domains.

Lucky for you, we have an awesome free Keyword Gap Analysis Tool to do the job!

Content Gap Analysis Tool

Click Here To Access The Tool

Our tool lets you analyze your top 3 competitors and provides you with the number of search results, average cost per click, and the estimated search volume of the keywords that they’re currently ranking for.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Find your competitors

In the tool, you can enter up to 3 competitors. You’ll want to use websites from your industry that are creating great content.

There are a couple of ways to look at competitors:

  • Direct competitors: These are businesses that sell the same thing you do
  • Indirect competitors: Businesses who don’t sell exactly what you do, but sell to the same audience.

Either one can work well with this process!

If you need help finding your competitors, try searching for your money keyword on Google to see who is already ranking for it.

Once you have your top 3 competitors, you can input them into the tool.

Make sure to use http:// or https:// before the URL.

competitors

Pro Tip: Feel free to change out the competitors to get the best results. Sometimes if you have a competitor with a big site, they might be ranking for keywords that are not super relevant, so just switch them out with a closer competitor. Additionally, to narrow down the results, you can use specific URLs instead of entire domains.

Step 2: Run the keyword gap analysis & select your target keywords

When you run the tool, it will pull a ton of keyword ideas (usually 100+ if you use the right competitors).

These are all keywords that your competitors rank for that you do not or big opportunities for you to create content!

Look for keywords or topics that make sense in your customer journey and then prioritize them accordingly. You may want to consider the search volume and the keyword difficulty when selecting your targets. 

Select your keywords

Step 3: Create the content

Once you have your keywords prioritized, you can start creating content around those keywords!

Start with your title and make sure it uses the keywords you selected. If you need some fresh ideas for titles, check out our Headline Generator Tool.

Make sure you search the keyword in Google to understand the search intent, and what type of content Google is ranking for that keyword.

For instance, Google might be ranking sales pages, long guides, short blog posts, reviews, tools, or even something different. You’ll want to match the type of content that Google is ranking currently if you want to compete for that keyword.

If you keep creating consistent content month over month, you can drastically increase your organic search traffic!

Final Thoughts

Performing a content gap analysis is a great way to find content ideas and keywords that are going to help your customers along their purchase cycle.

We’ve helped hundreds of businesses just like yours outrank their competitors and provide content that’s designed to convert traffic into sales.

If you have any additional questions regarding a content gap analysis feel free to reach out and schedule a call with me or one of our experts today!