Content Gap Analysis

How to Perform a Content Gap Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide 2024

Content gap analysis is a powerful tool for businesses looking to improve their SEO and content strategy. It helps identify areas where a company’s content falls short of meeting audience needs or fails to compete effectively with rivals. By pinpointing these gaps, organizations can create more targeted and impactful content that boosts their online presence and engages their target audience.

This guide will walk readers through the process of performing a content gap analysis step by step. It covers setting content goals, auditing existing content, analyzing competitor content, and identifying key opportunities. By following this approach, businesses can develop a more effective content plan that aligns with their objectives and addresses audience needs, ultimately leading to better content performance and improved search engine rankings.

What is a Content Gap Analysis?

### Definition

A content gap analysis is a strategic process that involves identifying missing or underperforming content on a website compared to competitors or market standards. It helps businesses uncover areas where their content falls short of meeting audience needs or fails to compete effectively with rivals. This analysis examines existing content offerings to find holes that could be filled with valuable assets to guide readers through their buyer’s journey.

Importance

Conducting a content gap analysis is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it helps improve content performance in terms of SEO and social shares. By pinpointing gaps, organizations can create more targeted and impactful content that boosts their online presence and engages their target audience. This process allows businesses to identify new keyword opportunities they’re not currently taking advantage of with existing content.

Additionally, a content gap analysis enhances the content strategy by unearthing areas for improvement. It helps refine the content and keyword strategy to meet the needs of the target audience, which can lead to improved search engine rankings. By addressing these gaps, companies can create content that better satisfies user intent and attracts more organic search traffic.

Types of content gaps

There are several types of content gaps that businesses may encounter:

  1. Keyword gaps: These occur when relevant keywords that the audience is searching for aren’t targeted by the content. Addressing keyword gaps can lead to improved SEO performance and increased organic traffic.
  2. Topic gaps: These arise when a website doesn’t cover important subjects or topics that the audience is interested in. Identifying topic gaps involves researching audience interests and competitors’ content to discover new subjects to cover.
  3. Format gaps: Different audiences prefer consuming content in various formats, such as articles, videos, infographics, or podcasts. Format gaps occur when content is not available in the formats that the audience prefers.
  4. Quality gaps: These emerge when content doesn’t meet the high standards expected by the audience. This can be due to outdated information, lack of depth, or poor writing.
  5. Content funnel gaps: These exist when there’s insufficient content catering to different stages of the buyer’s journey—awareness, consideration, and decision.

By identifying and addressing these various types of content gaps, businesses can create a more comprehensive and effective content strategy that aligns with their objectives and addresses audience needs.

Step 1: Identify Your Content Goals and Target Audience

Before diving into a content gap analysis, it’s crucial to establish clear objectives and understand the audience you’re trying to reach. This step lays the foundation for a successful content strategy that aligns with business goals and resonates with the target market.

Define your objectives

To begin, businesses need to set specific, measurable goals for their content marketing efforts. These objectives should support overarching business initiatives and be tailored to what content marketing can effectively achieve. Some common content marketing goals include:

• Driving traffic to the website • Increasing email list signups • Promoting new products or services • Improving organic search rankings

When setting these goals, it’s beneficial to use the SMART framework: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For instance, instead of a vague goal like “Increase Instagram Followers,” a well-defined objective would be “Reach 10,000 Followers on Instagram by the end of December“.

Create audience personas

Understanding the target audience is essential for creating content that resonates and drives results. Audience personas are curated profiles that describe large groups of the target audience sharing similar demographics and lifestyles. These personas help content creators get out of their own heads and see the brand through the eyes of customers.

When developing audience personas, consider including the following details:

• Job titles and responsibilities • Hopes, dreams, pains, and fears • Common objections to sales conversations • Age and familial situation • Educational level • Location of residence

Map the customer journey

The customer journey represents the path taken by the target audience toward becoming loyal customers. Understanding this journey is crucial for creating content that guides prospects through each stage effectively. The typical stages of a customer journey include:

  1. Awareness: The customer becomes aware of the brand, product, or service.
  2. Consideration: The customer evaluates various solutions, including the offering.
  3. Interest: The customer seeks additional information about the solution.
  4. Action: The customer makes a purchasing decision.
  5. Loyalty: The customer engages with the offering and potentially returns for additional purchases.
  6. Advocacy: The customer recommends the offering to others.

By mapping out the customer journey, businesses can identify content gaps at each stage and create targeted materials that address specific needs and concerns. This approach ensures that the content strategy supports the entire buying process, from initial awareness to post-purchase advocacy.

Step 2: Audit Your Existing Content

### Inventory your content

To begin the content gap analysis process, it’s crucial to create a comprehensive inventory of all existing content. This involves making a detailed list of every piece of digital content, including individual pages and assets. The inventory should capture specific characteristics about each piece, such as its type, format, and location.

A content inventory provides a great overview of the depth and breadth of content but doesn’t offer insights into its quality or how to improve it. That’s why it’s recommended to perform both an inventory and an audit together rather than choosing one over the other.

Assess content performance

Once the inventory is complete, the next step is to evaluate the performance of each piece of content. This assessment helps identify content that needs updating, areas where new content could be useful, and determine if some content should be removed.

To assess content performance effectively, consider the following criteria:

  1. User needs: Specify the target audience, their tasks, and needs. Evaluate how well the content supports these aspects and identify any unanswered questions.
  2. Content standards: Assess how well the content reflects the organization’s intended tonal values, includes appropriate metadata, follows formatting and structuring guidelines, and upholds design principles.
  3. Goals and performance metrics: Define the purpose of the content (e.g., create awareness, drive traffic, generate leads, or sell something). Use performance metrics such as clicks, views, bounce rates, likes, and shares, along with qualitative insights from user research to analyze content effectiveness.

Identify content strengths and weaknesses

After assessing content performance, it’s time to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each piece. This step helps uncover problematic, inaccurate, or outdated content, as well as low-quality pieces or sections.

To identify content strengths and weaknesses:

  1. Review the content inventory and audit for issues related to quality, accuracy, and relevance.
  2. Assign a status (keep, update, or remove) to each piece based on the audit findings.
  3. Document necessary updates and assign an owner for the task.
  4. Consult stakeholders and content creators for significant changes or content removal.
  5. Prioritize bringing content in line with industry best practices and your organization’s standards, especially those that are highly problematic and apparent.

By following these steps, you’ll gain a clear understanding of your existing content’s performance and identify areas for improvement in your content gap analysis.

Step 3: Analyze Competitor Content

### Identify top competitors

To begin the content gap analysis process, it’s crucial to identify the key competitors in the industry. This involves looking beyond just direct business rivals and considering those who compete for the same audience’s attention in search results. To find these competitors, one can use tools like Semrush’s Organic Research tool. For instance, when analyzing Macy’s competitors, the tool reveals businesses like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s, ordered by the number of keywords they share with Macy’s.

Evaluate competitor content strategies

Once the top competitors are identified, the next step is to dive deep into their content strategies. This involves examining various aspects of their content:

  1. Content categories: Look at competitors’ site menus, navigation tools, or blog tags to understand their broader content strategy and how they divide topics into subtopics.
  2. Asset types: Make a list of the types of content they create, such as blog posts, webinars, videos, infographics, white papers, and case studies. Note the quantity of each type and whether the content is free or gated.
  3. Content purpose: Analyze the main goal of each piece of content. Is it aimed at driving conversions or attracting backlinks?
  4. Publishing frequency: Determine how often competitors post and whether they follow a consistent schedule.
  5. Contributors: Look at who is writing their content. Do they name authors, feature guest posts, or collaborate with other brands?

Find content opportunities

To uncover content opportunities, use tools like the Keyword Gap tool to compare your site with competitors’. This will show keywords that competitors rank for but you don’t, revealing potential content gaps to fill. Additionally, voice-of-customer research can provide valuable insights into what content will resonate with your audience. Use these insights in conjunction with tools like Semrush’s Topic Research tool to generate specific content ideas based on general topics.

When analyzing competitor content, it’s also important to assess its quality. Rate competitors’ content on dimensions such as content length, accuracy, uniqueness, imagery, readability, and tone. This will help you understand the quality expectations in your industry and identify opportunities to set your brand apart.

Step 4: Identify and Prioritize Content Gaps

After conducting a thorough analysis of existing content and competitor strategies, it’s time to pinpoint and prioritize the gaps in your content. This step is crucial for developing a targeted content strategy that addresses audience needs and improves SEO performance.

List missing content topics

To identify content gaps, start by examining your competitors’ top-performing URLs and the characteristics driving their strong SEO performance. Look for patterns and themes in their content that you haven’t covered. Pay attention to topics or keywords where competitors consistently rank well, and consider how you can emulate or improve upon their strategies.

When analyzing gaps, consider different types:

• Keyword gaps: Topics your competitors rank for, but you don’t. • Topic gaps: Subjects your audience is interested in that you haven’t addressed. • Format gaps: Content types (like videos or infographics) that you haven’t utilized effectively.

Use SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to generate reports on competitors’ keywords and content. These tools can help identify underperforming content on your own site that may need updating or optimization.

Determine content formats needed

Once you’ve identified topic gaps, consider which content formats will best serve your audience and goals. Analyze the performance of different formats across your competitors’ sites and your own. Look at blogs, videos, infographics, case studies, white papers, and other content types to determine which formats resonate most with your audience.

Consider the following when choosing content formats:

• Audience preferences: Use surveys or analytics to understand which formats your audience engages with most. • Content purpose: Align formats with your goals, whether it’s to educate, entertain, or convert. • Distribution channels: Choose formats that work well on your primary distribution platforms. • Resources and budget: Consider the costs and resources required for different content types.

Create an action plan

With gaps identified and formats determined, it’s time to create a strategic action plan. Prioritize content creation based on the potential impact and effort required. Use an Effort-Impact matrix to categorize tasks:

  1. Low effort, high impact: Quick wins like refreshing old blog posts or adding relevant keywords to existing content.
  2. High effort, high impact: Larger projects such as launching a webinar series or creating comprehensive guides.
  3. Low effort, low impact: Small tasks like fixing typos or adding alt text to images.
  4. High effort, low impact: Long-term projects that may not yield immediate results but could pay off in the future.

Set specific timelines for each action item and monitor progress regularly. Create detailed content briefs that include insights gathered during your analysis to ensure new content effectively addresses identified gaps.

By systematically identifying and prioritizing content gaps, you can develop a robust content strategy that aligns with your audience’s needs and improves your overall SEO performance.

Conclusion

Content gap analysis is a powerful tool to boost your online presence and engage your target audience. By following this step-by-step guide, businesses can pinpoint areas where their content falls short and create a more effective strategy. This process has a significant impact on SEO performance, helping companies to improve their search engine rankings and attract more organic traffic.

To wrap up, conducting a content gap analysis is key to staying ahead in the digital landscape. It allows businesses to align their content with audience needs, fill in missing pieces, and outperform competitors. By putting this approach into action, companies can develop a robust content plan that not only meets their objectives but also resonates with their target market, leading to better content performance and stronger connections with their audience. ## FAQs

1. How do you perform a content gap analysis?
To perform a content gap analysis effectively, follow these five steps: First, understand your buyer’s journey which outlines the process your customers undergo before making a purchase. Next, engage in thorough market research. Analyze your current content to assess its effectiveness and relevance. Evaluate your competitors’ content to identify what they are doing differently or better. Finally, based on your findings, create new content to fill identified gaps.

2. What are the steps involved in conducting a gap analysis?
A gap analysis can be conducted by following these essential steps: Begin by defining the specific area you want to analyze and set clear goals for what you aim to achieve. Determine what the ideal future state of this area would look like. Analyze the current state to understand existing deficiencies. Compare the current state to the ideal state to identify discrepancies. Finally, clearly define and quantify these gaps to plan for improvements.

3. What are the key components of a content gap analysis?
The main elements of a content gap analysis include: Competitor Analysis, where you identify content areas your competitors cover that you do not; Keyword Analysis, which involves finding untapped keyword opportunities; and Audience Feedback, which helps understand what your audience feels is lacking or desires more of in your content.

4. What are the most effective tools for conducting a content gap analysis?
Some of the top tools for conducting a content gap analysis include SpyFu, which features a dedicated tool called Kombat for comparing your website’s keywords with those of your competitors, and Ahrefs, which offers a content gap feature that helps identify keywords your competitors rank for but you do not. These tools can significantly aid in scaling your content gap analysis efforts.

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *