What Is Content Gap Analysis?
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Content gap analysis is a powerful SEO technique that identifies opportunities to create or improve content by analyzing what competitors rank for and what your audience needs. This guide covers both competitor-based and market-based approaches, using free tools like AnswerThePublic, Moz Keyword Explorer, and Ahrefs to find keyword gaps and enhance existing content.
Content gap analysis identifies the gap between current content and desired state, helping to hit traffic and ranking targets.
Topic gaps (content you haven't covered) and quality gaps (content that could be improved). Both drive content creation or updates.
Competitor-based: find keywords competitors rank for that you don't. Market-based: understand audience needs and find unanswered questions.
A poll revealed that readers of an exercise bike article were 40% new mums, 30% gym goers, only 30% home workout enthusiasts. This informed new content topics.
Generate topic ideas by searching a broad term, download CSV, and identify gaps vs. existing content.
Use a provided spreadsheet to compare your keywords vs. competitors', automatically highlighting gaps.
In Site Explorer, enter your domain and competitor URLs to see keywords they rank for that you don't, with positions.
Set intersection to '1 target' to find unique opportunities that only one competitor covers.
Compare top-ranking articles for thoroughness: subtopics, images, videos, depth of coverage.
Content gap analysis clarifies your content marketing strategy and provides a competitive edge. Use free tools to identify keyword gaps and improve existing pages for better SEO performance.
What is content gap analysis?
A process to identify gaps between current content and desired state to improve traffic and rankings.
00:45
Name two types of content gap analysis.
Competitor-based and market-based.
01:14
How does competitor-based content gap analysis work?
Build a list of keywords your competitors rank for that you don't.
01:42
What is market-based content gap analysis?
Understand audience needs and find unanswered questions through keyword research.
01:57
Which free tool can be used to generate topic ideas for content gap analysis?
AnswerThePublic.
03:11
Which Moz tool is recommended for finding keyword gaps?
Moz Keyword Explorer.
04:09
In Ahrefs, what does setting intersection to '1 target' do?
Shows unique keywords that only one competing site ranks for.
06:19
How can you improve existing content using gap analysis?
Compare top-ranking articles for thoroughness in subtopics, images, videos, and depth.
06:47
Definition of Content Gap Analysis
Sets the foundation for the entire process.
00:45Two Approaches to Gap Analysis
Explains the strategic options for identifying gaps.
01:14Free Spreadsheet Automation
Provides a practical, automated way to find gaps without paid tools.
03:57Ahrefs Intersection Setting
A key tip to uncover easy ranking opportunities.
06:19[00:02] stale over time there are very few true evergreen pieces of content that don't require some sort of updating and improving as time goes on the opportunities you could find from content gap analysis
[00:16] content gap analysis can provide massive seo gains including improved ranking positions and organic traffic in this video i'll take you through the general process of content gap analysis the best tools to perform
[00:29] content gap analysis and how to do it for free the gap between where a company currently is and where it wants to be so
[00:45] content gap analysis is used to identify gaps within your existing content to help you hit your traffic and search positioning targets this could be either gaps in content topics that you're yet to cover or quality gaps in either your
[00:59] competitors or your own content that you could plug your findings from this process will drive you to either update your existing contents or create brand new content basing your decisions on a well-informed strategy that you know
[01:14] will work i'm about to take you through a step-by-step process to content gap analysis but before i do make sure to subscribe to our channel and hit that little bell icon to make sure you never miss a new upload the first type of gap
[01:28] analysis should be performed when you're looking to create new content the idea is to identify gaps in your existing content so that you can plug these gaps with quality well-researched content there are two approaches to content
[01:42] topic gap analysis in seo competitor-based and market-based competitor-based content gap analysis involves building a list of keywords that your competitors are ranking for that you're not market-based analysis is
[01:57] about getting a crystal clear idea of who your audience is as well as their needs and desires then using keyword research to find which topics and questions are not answered in your article page or resource let's say you
[02:11] have a popular article about the best exercise bikes so you assume that the majority of the existing readers of your blog post frequently work out from home however you run a poll and it turns out that 40 of your readers are new mums 30
[02:26] are avid gym goers and only the last 30 percent are those who already work out from home so on to this information you begin keyword research and you are able to find a ton of keywords surrounding the benefits of working out from home
[02:42] and quick workouts you can do with limited equipment that both you and your competitors fail to discuss creating new content to include these topics is therefore likely to provide a massive boost to that website's traffic and
[02:57] conversions now let's look at how you can find gaps in the topics you've already covered on your blog the first process is a little laborious but it's great for generating a ton of content topic ideas based on popular search
[03:11] terms around a barrage topic and that's by using answer the public searching for exercise bikes will be greeted with a seemingly endless selection of suggested topics in visually appealing but not necessarily the most practical graphics
[03:26] thankfully we can just download the terms as a csv of course you'd need to ideas to find those that you haven't already covered and carry out detailed keyword research around those topics but it's a great place to start if you're
[03:42] looking to identify gaps in your content and generate some initial ideas thankfully there is a simpler way we've created a free spreadsheet for you to use with formula ready to go which will help you automate the process
[03:57] from the link in the description below first we need to find all the keywords and all those that your competitors are ranking for i'll be using the free moz
[04:09] keyword explorer all it requires is a free moz account start by entering the urls for the articles already published around a particular topic we'll use our keyword research content as an example enter the url into the keyword explorer
[04:25] change the location to your targets view the top ranking keywords and click export do the same for your competitors content ranking for the same keyword and export those keywords now paste your keywords under the your keywords column
[04:40] and your competitors keywords under the competitors keywords column immediately you will see some competitor keywords highlighted as green those are your content gaps the keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are
[04:54] not our template is super basic there are a million and one ways for you to improve it make it more powerful and customize it to support your specific research for example you could add a ranking column right next to the volume
[05:09] column right now we know that a competitor is ranking for a keyword but we have no idea what position they are in so this could be beneficial data for you to analyze now i've shown you how to do a basic
[05:23] content gap analysis i want to take you through how to use ahrefs tool built specifically for this research you'll find the content gap analysis tool within their site explorer we're going to take an example from the search
[05:36] results for comfiest beanbags and use greatbeanbags.com say we want to discover what are the keywords competitors that are already ranking for this search term also rank for so we'll enter our domain in the site explorer
[05:50] and click the content gap report from the menu on the left add the articles you are competing against in this example i just chose to and you'll be faced with a list of all the keywords each competitor ranks for that you don't
[06:04] and their ranking position another tip to better your results is to set the intersection setting to one target this will show unique keywords that one competing site ranks for but the others don't it's how you can find often easy
[06:19] opportunities for you to target with your contents i mentioned earlier that you can also use content gap analysis to improve existing content by identifying gaps in the actual content itself for example if you have an existing article
[06:34] about a topic with a high search volume that isn't performing as well as it could you can use this analysis to identify gaps in the article that need to be improved to do this we'd want to look at the contents that's already
[06:47] ranking well in google let's go back to our best exercise bikes example we'll enter this into google search scroll down to the organic results and open the top ranking posts to check for thoroughness how in depth does the
[07:02] content go into each point subtitles are there any subtopics within the article that you've missed in your own media how many images have they included are there unique photos taken by the author or stock images are there any
[07:17] embedded videos looking for these kind of details will inform how you approach updating your own content to get it ranking in the search results we have a more detailed video guide to refreshing old content which is actually a really
[07:32] great way to quickly boost your website's seo i've popped a link in the description below your content marketing strategy will become much clearer with a good content gap analysis and it could be the only edge you need to stay
[07:46] competitive within the search results the next step is to create quality content that is fully search engine optimized so click the screen now to optimized so click the screen now to find out exactly how to do this
[07:59] find out exactly how to do this [Music]
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