The key elements to do a content gap analysis

Informative and compelling content is critical to a site’s Google rank. A content gap analysis helps evaluate current content and find gaps in the information that can be improved upon.

Performing a content gap analysis is essential for your small business content strategy. So let’s take a closer look at performing a content gap analysis.

Content Gap Analysis Overview

We can look at content gap analysis in two ways:

• First, review the current content of your closest competitors. Study what they write and about and determine gaps in the content.
• Review the current content on your website. Next, identify gaps and revise and expand the content to improve it.

When reviewing competitors’ content, find out the last time they updated the content. Also, see if they offer concrete examples to prove their points and have reliable sources. Last, check if their content is easy to read and understand.

If you notice a competitor has a content gap, it’s a fantastic opportunity to fill them in on your site. Creating new content that addresses gaps will attract more readers. It also will improve the site’s SEO for Google and other search engines.

Remember, most consumers don’t look at Google search results after page 1. So having your site at or near the top is vital for your company’s success.

Next, return to your website and review your content as part of your content gap analysis. Many older web pages and blog posts may need a refresh. Also, check for out-of-date links, new studies and sources, and old dates. We recommend using several content planning tools to help your team analyze their content.

Mapping The Content Gap In Your Customers’ Journey

Before starting your analysis, it’s essential to map the buyer’s journey:

• Beginning: This may be referred to as the “top of the funnel, where the person finds the product or service. This could be on a blog post, Facebook ad, or a beautiful picture on your Instagram.
• Middle: In the middle section of the funnel, the prospect evaluates the product, does research, and decides if they should purchase or not. Using email or newsletters could be helpful here to keep their interest.
• Bottom: The person has located your company and completed research at the funnel’s bottom. Now they decide to buy or not. This is where a video about the product or service may help. Or maybe a fact sheet that shows how your product is better than the competitors.

How To Do A Content Gap Analysis

Here are the steps to perform a content gap analysis:

Find Your Competitors

It’s essential to determine your competitors for the content gap analysis. Write down the top three to five competitors for your website. It can take some research to determine who is competing with you in Google search.

Some SEO experts recommend using keyword tools available at SEMRush and Ahrefs. They also help find competitor Websites that turn up often in searches.

Choose An Analysis Method

There are two content gap analysis methods to consider:

• Qualitative analysis is used from URL and keyword data from competitors and your sites. In addition, many digital professionals use the SEMRush organic reporting tool.
• Quantitative analysis analyzes SERPs and the landing pages for your competitors. Other factors that you should consider are the quality of content and how SEO-friendly the content is.

Content Analysis

Doing a content gap analysis primarily focused on assessing your site’s content. As your team reviews content, Keep these points at the top of mind:

• Check that your title tags, meta descriptions, and headers have been optimized. Also, do the most popular content pieces have appropriate CTAs with plenty of internal links?
• Is there any shallow content? How about several pages with almost the same information? It helps to add to this content or consolidate it during your content gap analysis.
• Check for high bounce rates, slow load speed, and page loading problems.

Review Competitor Content

Analyze primary competitor content just like you did for your own. The critical goal is to pinpoint content that falls into these areas:

• Competitor content that is doing well in Google searches and provides the business with traffic for essential keywords.
• Content that your website values and could use to build upon.
• Content that offers high ROI in terms of revenue for the business. Remember, it’s not just about superior SEO results.

Look For Content Gaps

When looking for content gaps in your content gap analysis, keep these points in mind:

• What are the best-performing pages for your competitors? Can your company emulate that content and expand upon it?
• Where are competitors underperforming with their content and SEO? Can your organization take advantage of that?
• How much are competitors using videos, blogs, FAQs, and pillar pages? What is working and what isn’t?

Find Overlaps In Content

A content overlap usually means keywords where the website is in the top 10, and at least one competitor is.

Now, find out the keywords where your company is doing better than the competition. Also, look for areas of the content overlap where you and the competitor are in the top five Google positions.

You need to find the best opportunities to create more and better content that will increase Google traffic. And that increased traffic needs to produce revenue.

Collate Your Data

Your content gap analysis is almost complete! Now you need to collate your findings and present them to significant stakeholders.

Many digital professionals use one or more of these documents to present the results of their content gap analysis:

• Microsoft Word: Can present ranking and keyword data for every competitor. Charts and tables help show the keywords and pages part of the content gap. Use screenshots of the best competitor content compared to your own.
• Microsoft Excel: Use pivot tables to demonstrate the content gaps and overlap. Also helpful are heat maps for those tables. Finally, list URLs that need more content work and classification.
• Microsoft Powerpoint: Powerpoint is often used to present content gap analysis findings to clients and significant stakeholders. But the other deliverables in Word and Excel are essential to organizing the analysis results.

Wrapping Up

If you want to improve your site content, the focus should be on implementing a content gap analysis followed by a comprehensive content strategy and content marketing. Doing a content gap analysis is a highly effective way to improve your site’s content. It also gives you a plan to create innovative content that outdoes your competition.

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