As you gear up to enter the competitive battlefield that is content marketing, your most powerful weapon is not just a content strategy, but a masterfully crafted one.

In this ever-evolving landscape, each piece of website content is a move in a strategic game. But it’s not just about great content; it’s about creating the right content. That’s where content gap analysis can give your business an edge.

Content gap analysis is your secret map, guiding you through uncharted territories and helping you uncover hidden opportunities that will ultimately allow you to outmaneuver the competition.

Let’s head into battle together to discover how content gap analysis can transform your content strategy and propel you to the forefront of digital marketing success.

What Is Content Gap Analysis?

Content gap analysis is a tactic used in content marketing to identify missed elements or opportunities within your existing content strategy.

It involves taking a good look at your competitors or current market standards to discover topics or themes that are lacking coverage or completely missing from your competitors’ content.

Using this approach, you can uncover insights into areas where your content strategy can be improved or expanded in order to better meet the needs and interests of your target audience.

How Content Gap Analysis Boosts SEO

Content gap analysis and SEO strategy typically go hand-in-hand.

By getting a clear picture of what your competitors’ content looks like and which areas they may have overlooked, you can uncover valuable search queries that aren’t (yet) being heavily targeted by competitors.

By taking this approach, you’re likely to be rewarded with more organic traffic and conversions for your business.

Here’s are 5 ways that content gap analysis can help you land on that first page of search results:

1. Uncovering new keyword opportunities: Content gap analysis can help identify keywords (or keyword gaps) that your competitors rank for but you don’t. By gearing your content creation towards these keywords, you can attract more organic traffic and boost SEO performance.
2. Enhancing relevance and authority: By filling gaps in your competitors’ content, you can establish your website as an authority in your niche. Search engines favor websites that provide comprehensive, in-depth information on a topic, which improves your overall rankings.
3. Improving user experience: Providing comprehensive and unique content that answers popular search queries leads to a better user experience for your audience. From an SEO perspective, that means longer site visits and reduced bounce rates, both positive signals to search engines.
4. Increasing backlink opportunities: By crafting content that offers valuable information about your industry or product, you’re more likely to earn backlinks from other websites. These backlinks are critical for SEO, as they signal to search engines that your website content is valuable and trustworthy.
5. Staying ahead of trends: Content gap analysis is your secret weapon to identifying emerging trends and topics. By being first to a specific topic and creating content on it before competitors, you gain an SEO advantage and are often rewarded with higher placements on search engine results pages.

How to Identify Gaps in Competitor Content

Finding gaps in your competitors’ content can be as simple as a quick Google search. But in order to spot important trends and topics that are lacking, there’s a certain process that needs to be followed.

At Growth Machine, we include content gap analysis in our strategy development for clients.

Here’s a quick overview of the exact process we use to identify content gaps and shape those insights into an effective content creation.

Step 1: Understand Which Keywords Your Competitors are Targeting

Keep in mind that when it comes to your SEO competitors, the websites competing for your desired target keywords might not be the same as your actual business competitors.

To find out who you’re actually competing with for search traffic, we recommend starting with a competitor analysis tool such as Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, or Semrush. These tools are your greatest allies in the battle for rankings.

For example, our team uses Ahrefs’ Organic Competitors Report to identify websites that rank in the top 10 for the same keywords as our clients. Take note of who these competitors are and keep their domains on hand for Steps 2 and 3.

You can also use SEO tools to pinpoint which keyword gaps exist in your own content, or in other words, keywords that your competitors rank for that you might not yet be targeting.

Here are some other ways that keyword research tools can help uncover new keyword opportunities.

• Learn more about your audience’s pain points by browsing common queries related to your niche.
• See which questions are being asked, but not adequately answered by your competitors or in your existing content.
• Search for keywords with high search volumes but less competition to spot new content opportunities and spark ideas for your own content creation.

• Identify which types of content your audience prefers, such as long-form blog posts, social media posts, or e-books.
• Discover emerging trends or topics within your industry or niche.

Step 2: Find Out Where Your Competitors’ Traffic Is Coming From

Once you’ve got a clear vantage of which businesses you’re competing with, it’s time to go a layer deeper by looking at their website architecture.

At Growth Machine, we use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer tool to enter competitor website domains and pull a full site structure report to see where their organic traffic is coming from.

This is where you can get really granular with your analysis. You can compare which webpages are driving the most traffic, including the types of content that are performing best.

For example, let’s say you’ve created a new point-of-sale software. Using Ahrefs, you might have discovered that your competitors are using infographic templates to demonstrate how the software works.

By creating a detailed, step-by-step brochure of your own that instructs users on how the software works, you can attract potential customers that are looking for this information.

The Site Explorer tool also allows you to see where competitor traffic is coming from. This can help you spot opportunities to gain more organic traffic by translating your website or creating pieces of content in other languages.

Let’s say your competitors are getting most of their traffic from the United States, Mexico, and Brazil. You might consider translating your homepage or landing pages into Spanish in order to maximize traffic from these countries.

Lastly, SEO tools like Ahrefs can help you analyze the backlink profiles of competitors, including which sites are linking to your competitors but not to you. These sites are great opportunities for future backlink outreach, so make sure to note them down for later.

Step 3: Bridge the Gaps With Quality Content

Armed with your keyword research and intel on your competitors, it’s time to bridge those gaps with quality content.

Still have that list of keyword gaps on hand from Step 1? Great. Using that list, start to brainstorm content ideas that aren’t just relevant, but offer a unique perspective. Providing a fresh angle or deeper insight than your competitors is a surefire way to climb the SERPs faster.

You can also integrate these keywords into your existing content optimization to close some of the gaps and keep your content relevant and on trend.

Another content gap analysis strategy we love is looking for opportunities to capture SERP features in your niche. Securing valuable SERP real estate, such as featured snippets, image packs, and knowledge panels, can have a significant impact on your online visibility.

For example, take a look at the featured snippet that your competitors are dominating and hunt for gaps in their content or areas where you can provide more detailed information. Then, optimize your top pieces of content to “steal” it away and watch your search rankings skyrocket.

Remember: The biggest differentiator between high and low-quality content comes down to how well you’ve met the needs of your target audience. Does the format of your blog articles resonate with them? Are you using language and a format that they can understand and digest?

The more you can tailor your content pieces to your audience’s interests, the better your SEO content will perform.

Work With a Partner to Bridge the Content Gaps

We’ve talked about how content gap analysis is a foundational part of our strategy development for clients here at Growth Machine. We’ve got the results to back it up.

For example, check out how we helped this FinTech client break out in a highly saturated market. Using content gap analysis, we were able to find opportunities to fill gaps where competitors hadn’t yet published content and grow their blog traffic by over 6,000% in just 13 months.

With effective competitor analysis and a well-crafted content strategy, we can do the same for you.

Let’s chat about how we can find and fill the gaps to propel your content to new heights.