How to do a Content Gap Analysis for SEO

What is Content Gap Analysis (CGA)?

A content gap analysis is a process of finding gaps in your existing or competitor’s content.

A gap refers to a topic or keyword opportunity that is not being used to its full potential. An example of a content gap could be that a topic that you may have published a year ago does not contain an aspect of that topic. Analysing your content is the best way to find out how you can gain more traffic and keywords to take advantage of.

When should you perform a Gap Analysis?

There’s no set period when you should perform a content gap analysis. Several factors depend on when it’s the right time. It is more often used when a business is looking for any problem with performance or during a content audit. 

What can a Content Gap Analysis do for you?

A content gap analysis allows you to see opportunities that you can rank for, whether this is on your website or a competitor.

This gap in your content gives your competitor a chance to rank for that topic or keyword. The gap in your competitor’s website allows you to take advantage of that gap and rank ahead of your competitor. It is crucial to find these holes so that you gain more insight into the traffic you receive.

Here are some reasons you may want to perform a contact gap analysis:

Benchmarks: You can compare your results across your industry and see where you rank against your competitors.

Analyse Portfolio: Examine your product for new sales opportunities or use it to find new products to sell. Gap analysis can also be used to see what products aren’t selling well.

Sales and Profits: CGA can be used to compare your forecasts and determine if anything went wrong.

Process analysis: This allows the opportunity to reveal any shortcomings of processes.

KPI’s: Here is where a company is missing performance indicator targets and look for the reasons behind it.

Usage Gaps: Compare the difference between the current market size for a service or product, compared to the potential market size.

 

Steps to conducting a Content Gap Analysis

There are several steps you can take when conducting your content gap analysis. Here are the four steps:

#1 Research your buyer’s journey

This step is where you map out how your target audience gets through from A to B. You can consider what call to actions your users are likely to use and focus on their issues. This research aims to ask yourself how your users will get through to your end goal.

#2 Market Research

Market research is a must of you want to think up content ideas that line up with what your audience wants. The most practical way to do this is to ask your users/customers questions to understand their pain points, goals, concerns, and questions. You can do this through an anonymous survey, popups, or customer feedback.

The responses you will receive will provide you with valuable information on what your audience is thinking. The goal of this part is to give you several content ideas that align with your potential audience. 

#3 Analyse your content

Now that you have performed your research, its now time to have a look at your content. You can see if your content aligns with what your audience is searching for and find gaps.

#4 Analyse your competitors content

Go through your competitors’ content and see what they are doing right or what they are missing. Go through their pages and blog posts and determine if similar content will be fit for your website.

An important note to add is to not copy your competitor’s strategy. Take this chance to view if they have any holes in their strategy that you can take advantage of.

#5 Implement your research

You can now put in place what you have found, whether that involves changing existing content or starting from scratch. One of the most crucial parts of having a website is providing your users with value. It is also critical to review your changes over time and go through this process again.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a content gap analysis lets you find cracks in your content and your competitor’s content. Get ahead of the competition and rank your website higher by using this analysis.

Let’s work together and start implementing a content gap analysis into your SEO workflow!