How to carry out a “content gap analysis” for SEO
One of the most common questions we get in relation to content marketing is: “How do I actually know what to write about?”
If you take a look at SEO keyword research, this is already an optimal chance to determine topics you should address on your website.
But how do you know if you might be missing out on other more lucrative opportunities in the same breath? Performing a content gap analysis is an intelligent way to find the “gaps” in your content.
This will help you develop strategic content ideas that will attract more visitors, achieve more customer conversions and provide even greater value to your target audience.
In this article, you will learn how to carry out an effective content gap analysis to review your content strategy and improve your website’s SEO .
What is a content gap analysis?
Simply put – and as the name suggests – a content gap analysis is the process of finding gaps in your existing content.
It’s about identifying missing content that could and should match the different phases of your target group ‘s buyer’s journey. By analyzing your existing content offering, you can identify where you are missing valuable assets that could lead the reader to make a purchase.
In addition, you will probably also find new keyword opportunities that you are not yet using with your existing content. This is because a content gap analysis often includes a review of your:
- Webpages
- Blog article
- Social media content
- Landing pages
- Ebooks and downloadable content
- And other content assets
Conducting a content gap analysis is crucial to finding gaps in your content so that you can fill them and make it easier for users to find your website and become your customers.
Adaptation of your content to the buyer’s journey
Not every visitor who lands on your website is ready to buy something from you. Often you are simply looking for information and want to compare your options or are looking for the best solution.
Your goal here is to create content for every phase of the buyer’s journey – regardless of whether the potential customers are “problem-aware”, “solution-aware” or in the final decision phase.
Many brands are focusing on creating informative content in the form of blog posts to attract a wider audience, as well as “money” pages to convert these users into buyers.
However, this creates gaps, as users who are still considering various options are not taken into account. When analyzing the content gaps, you should therefore find out whether you have content for the awareness, reflection, decision-making and success stages.
So-called “awareness pages” target keywords that relate to a problem of your target group. The content is aimed precisely at solving the target group’s problem and providing valuable information. On the other hand, it should not immediately turn the reader into a customer.
In the consideration phase, users compare different solutions to their problem. Instead, they may read comparison guides, reviews or “best of” articles.
This is precisely why it is advisable to create content that compares your service/product with those of your competitors or simply presents your brand as one of many solutions with a post.
The decision phase is the phase in which you will find the most “money” pages. These are your sales pages, service pages etc. which then serve as the last checkpoint before the user finally becomes a customer or contacts you.
These pages will be more branded in comparison than your awareness and consideration content. After all, success content is there to reassure your customer that they will achieve their desired outcome.
This can be as simple as a thank you page or as complex as a follow-up email sequence that connects the customer to further support or asks them for a review.
So performing a content gap analysis will help you find out if you have content for every step of the buyer’s journey and for every offer on your website (whether it’s services, products, form fills, downloads, etc.).
You don’t want to give the user the opportunity to fall through the gaps.
4 steps for carrying out a content gap analysis
A content gap analysis is more than just combing through your blog posts to see if you’re missing any key content ideas. There is a simple step-by-step process to find the clear gaps in your content and fill the holes in your content strategy.
This is how it is done:
1. outline your buyer’s journey
You should ask yourself which steps your target audience has to go through to get from A to B and then to C. Take some time to do this and draw or write down the key questions your target audience might have and then the different options they might consider, as well as what they are even looking for before they buy and what calls-to-action are likely to get them to contact you.
For example:
A small business may be struggling to get its finances under control. With this problem in mind, this business may be looking for, “How do I manage the finances of my small business?”
This leads to several articles that talk about the “X best ways to manage your business finances”. So you click on an article titled “10 ways to get a handle on your small business finances.” This article then contains 10 helpful tips, one of which is to use online accounting and bookkeeping software.
The business owner goes back to the Google search engine and searches for “best online accounting software”. You will then be redirected to an overview of the five best providers of accounting software.
The business owner then searches for two of these companies and compares the advantages and disadvantages of each provider. As soon as they are sure which company suits them best, they will land on the company’s registration page and sign up for a free trial.
After about a week, the company contacts me with an email advertising its fee-based accounting software. As the store owner liked this brand, he decided to take out a paid subscription.
In this example above, you can see that there are multiple ways to create content at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Your goal here is to outline this for your own company, based on the various services and/or products you offer.
2. carry out market research
One of the best ways to come up with content ideas that resonate with what your target audience wants is to simply ask them what they want.
Conduct market research to identify your target audience’s most burning questions, concerns, pains, needs and goals. This feedback is then incorporated into your website content strategy.
Use Google Forms to create a simple anonymous survey and send it to your target audience.
Some questions that should be included in your survey are:
- What questions do you have about [Thema]?
- What do you struggle with most when it comes to [Thema]?
- What solutions have you tried in the past?
- Why didn’t these solutions work for you?
- What are the three most important things you look for in a [Dienstleistung]/ [Produkt]?
- Where do you find/look for solutions like [Dienstleistung/Produkt]?
- What is the deciding factor as to whether you opt for [Lösung A] or [Lösung B]?
The responses you receive to your market research survey will provide you with a treasure trove of content ideas, all tailored to the real needs and concerns of your customers.
3. analyze the content on your website
Even though your brand likely publishes or shares content on a variety of platforms, you should make sure that the content on your website at least matches the buyer’s journey and doesn’t have any gaps for your potential customers to fall through.
Search your website for all URLs and determine how or if they also match each phase. Then you can tell exactly whether you are missing content that should bridge the gap between one phase and another.
For example, if you’re a law firm and you have an article titled “How to file for divorce” and your immediate call-to-action is “Hire a lawyer” and you direct visitors to your contact page, you may be scaring off people who aren’t yet sure they need a lawyer.
Instead, you should link to an article like “12 Things You Should Know Before Hiring a Divorce Lawyer” or “4 Steps to Finding the Best Divorce Lawyer in the Area.” This allows you to set up the customer first before you confront them with an offer, such as hiring you.
Another way to find gaps on your website is to use SEO tools. With these tools you can see which keywords your website is already ranking for. When searching for these keywords, you can also find related keywords that you have not yet used for the existing content.
Use this opportunity to maximize your traffic and consolidate your content.
4. analyze the content of your competitors
Finding out what’s missing from your site often requires a process of elimination, but looking at your competitors’ content – and comparing how your site is performing – is a great way to find that gap even better.
If your competitor’s content is more or less the same as yours, see what content you have created to take users from one stage to the next. Do your articles take readers directly to a contact page? Or is there other content to support the user before purchase (comparison guides, FAQ pages, case studies, etc.)?
What works for one website does not necessarily work for the other. You do not want to copy your competitor’s strategy. Rather, you want to find out where your own strategy has weaknesses in order to develop something better than the competition.
You can also use SEO tools like SEMrush to see which keywords your competitors are ranking for and then combine them with some new content ideas.
Pay attention to the gap
Many marketers and business owners make the mistake of focusing on “money” pages to push sales or relying on informative blog articles to attract readers.
Remember: you need both, but you also need content that bridges the gap between the individual steps of the buyer’s journey – from the first “problem awareness” to the time of the purchase decision.
Conducting a content gap analysis is key to finding the gaps in your existing content strategy so that you can proceed with confidence to create new content assets that generate traffic and lead users to purchase.
It also gives you the opportunity to identify new keyword potential based on your competitors’ intentions (or not).
A content gap analysis involves reviewing your current content and developing a content strategy that reaches users at multiple touchpoints. This way you get valuable content that converts even the coldest audience into a ready-to-buy customer.
