In this matrix it becomes apparent what requirements are not yet addressed by existing content. So, say you’re producing great content, but other sites still rank higher in search engine results. Well, it’s not enough to be “great”, you need to cater to what the search engine wants – and you need to do it better than competing sites. While focusing on short and popular keywords may seem like the way to go, long-tail keywords tend to have less competition. You can take advantage of this and achieve a better ranking than sites only using generic target phrases. However, simply checking your pages isn’t enough – you need to fill those potential gaps as well.
Using our investment app example, let’s look at gaps in the top 10 results. You can see that Betterment is outranking Ellevest for some relevant keywords like “what does vesting mean” and “roth ira vs sep ira”. Here, you want to determine the main buckets of topics and keywords you’re targeting.
Performing keyword research allows you to start connecting the dots between what your customers have told you and what the data from search engines is showing. When you’re able to measure your results, take note of how much traffic is driven to each page, your keyword rankings, organic traffic, and click-through and conversion rates. Using a topic analysis template is crucial, as it will help you identify any gaps that exist for each keyword of interest. It’s essential that you take the time to examine all of your data before moving forward with anything else.
Competitors may continue to produce high-quality content that targets specific keywords or topics, while you miss out on those opportunities. This can result in a lower overall search engine ranking and decreased visibility in the eyes of your target audience. Analysis of a website or blog’s content gaps also plays a role in SEO content optimization, keyword research and targeting, and topic groupings or clusters.
SEO tools use a variety of methods to automatically evaluate competitive content gaps. One common method is to use keyword research and analysis to identify the keywords and phrases that are being targeted by competing websites but not by your site. Professional SEO software tools help automate tasks related to content and keyword gap analysis. And with https://medium.com/@yousefimehran2001/best-telegram-seo-group-join-link-b08f39cec9f5 (AI) now becoming more mainstream, SEO tools with AI capabilities are in a good position to provide smarter and more insightful content gap analysis. Once you have your keywords and theirs, you need to compare and categorize them. You can use tools like Excel or Google Sheets to create a spreadsheet and filter the keywords by different criteria, such as search volume, ranking position, difficulty, or intent.
Here’s how to do an effective content gap analysis to audit your content strategy and improve your website’s SEO. That is we’re going to look at how many links your competitors have and how many referring domains are pointing to your competitors. We’re going to look at how many links your competitors had 6 months ago or 12 months ago if your market is a little slower, and we’re going to get a percentage of growth out of that. That’s going to indicate to you whether your search market is very aggressive with link building and you need to make an effort to keep up or it’s a little bit more relaxed. So how many people are looking for your competitors’ brands versus how many people are looking for your brand? That’s going to indicate the level of brand awareness that you have within your target audience in comparison to your competitors.
Track the performance of different pieces of content over time so you can better understand which ones are resonating with audiences. Improve your content against your competitors to better resolve search intent and rank higher. The biggest advantage is to be able to see all the problems of a page with a simple analysis. It also helps us to tracking the positioning of keywords and to know in detail the CPC and
CPC and competition for each keyword in detail.
- That’s going to indicate the level of brand awareness that you have within your target audience in comparison to your competitors.
- For example, if your competitors are ranking for “best SEO tools,” you can create a blog post or page that targets that keyword and provides valuable information about the best SEO tools.
- You can also read the documentation to learn about Wordfence’s blocking tools, or visit wordfence.com to learn more about Wordfence.
- With Ahrefs, you can also filter based on many factors and view data in terms of keyword intersection, search volume, difficulty, and more.
- None will be as efficient and easy to use as paid software, however, they’re a great start if you’re not sure if investing in these SEO tools will be worth it.
Make sure your content is captivating, comprehensive and tailored to your target audience interests. As you create a lasting digital marketing strategy, you must remember that there is more to succeeding in the SERPs than following only standard SEO best practices. You must also consider what your competitors are doing and how you can out-maneuver them.
Content gap refers to the missing pieces of content that your audience wants to read but haven’t been created yet. It’s safe to say that almost every brand is involved in the content marketing game. Once you’ve carried out a thorough analysis of your results, you’ll be able to see which gaps should be filled, as well as the best course of action for doing so.
There Are Tips To Help Define Your Target Audience
A great way to learn about your target audience and identify their pain points is by conducting surveys and interviews with them. You can also learn about what they enjoy reading and what topics they feel should be covered in-depth. You should also download a marketing calendar template, as you’ll need this for setting out your content map. If done correctly, you can ensure that all of the current content is mapped to the different stages of the buyer’s journey.
In this situation we are going to compare My Swingle’s article on lawncare to its competitors’. For example, it’s easier to use if you’re looking for keywords that you’re not ranking for at all (new content opportunities). It’s possible to filter search queries to look at your competitor’s position compared to yours but it takes some finesse. Furthermore, because we selected the “context” insight earlier on, we can (and should) only filter for the clusters of keywords that trigger informational results. It means we’re doing our content gap analysis without all the noise of looking at transactional pages.
By doing a thorough content gap analysis and creating a plan to fill those gaps, you can improve your site’s SEO performance and increase engagement and conversions. Once you have identified the content gaps on your website, it’s time to start filling them up. The best way to start is by creating an outline for each piece of content you want to make. Include the topic, main points, keywords, structure, and any other important details that need to be included. Having a well-defined plan in place will make executing it much easier.
By doing a content gap analysis, you’ll be able to see what topics your audience is looking for. This will allow you to create content around specific topics and keywords and ensure that you’re giving your audience what they want- which adds up to better-performing content. Another option is to use a contract creator to create standardized content and templates in a format that can be edited and optimized within a browser-based environment. A content gap analysis identifies content topics and keywords your competitors are outperforming your website for and provides insights into how you can improve your own content.
There Are Categories For The Blog
With the right insights, you will be able to see what makes this content stand out and rank highly, such as the backlinks going to the content and how often they use the keyword in question. You can then use these insights as you write and optimize your own material, looking for weaknesses in the other content that you can capitalize on to drive your own material higher up on the SERP. If there are particular topics that aren’t getting enough attention, take action right away by creating the content marketing strategies including those subjects. This could involve researching and writing blog posts, creating new web pages, or even producing videos to add the missing content. Several keyword research tools, such as Google’s Keyword Planner and SEMrush, can help you identify and create a list of target keywords with the most popular keywords and phrases related to your industry. Keyword gap analysis provides valuable insights into your competitors’ keyword strategies, giving you an edge.
If you continue to produce and distribute high-quality content at scale consistently, Google has more available information to assess you. While third-party data has inherent limitations, it’ll allow you to quantify your market with more conviction. Your aim here is to use as many data points as possible to get a complete picture of your market and the keywords that formulate your organic opportunity. Before you consider SEO a growth channel for your startup, you need to establish market demand in your niche. Your job is to calculate exactly how many of these searches are relevant to your startup.
The Gaps Need To Be Filled
No matter how optimized your site is, there are always untapped opportunities. It may be a good idea for Zoho and Mailchimp to follow this best practice and publish dedicated pages for the keywords instead. Google is clearly looking for different information and article formats for both keywords. Further analysis shows us that “customer acquisition” and “customer acquisition cost” are very closely related and sometimes even used interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same thing.
Both results are very valuable because you see who you are competing with currently to be ranked but also what your “real life” competition is up to. Most SEO tools offer some form of site auditing and give you an overall score for the site. The metrics below can give you an idea of how much your competitors are investing in technical SEO.
In fact, a survey by Conductor found that 70% of consumers prefer to learn about a company through articles rather than ads. I do keyword research for my projects and those of my clients almost daily. I use the audit a lot both for potential clients, as well as to control my projects. To be able to see keywords from other websites without accessing their search console.
By answering these questions you can set yourself up for success and have a plan in place to measure and monitor your content gap analysis. There are a few different reasons to invest time into a content gap analysis. SE Ranking’s Keyword Rank Tracker gives you daily updates on your rankings across multiple locations. Having this knowledge is crucial to delivering successful online content marketing services, as it helps ensure that your audience isn’t left wondering where to go next. By mapping content in this way, you’re taking the guesswork out of the entire process for your users and consistently driving them to the next stage in their journey. Now that you’ve narrowed down your backlink opportunities based on which domains link to your competitors but not to you, it’s time to determine which sites will provide the most valuable backlinks.
Your content should not only be high quality and informative but also read well and target the right audience with the proper keywords. Are your pages not showing up in relevant search queries, or are they not ranking high enough? Do you want to increase traffic, or convert more of your current traffic to purchases? If you don’t know what your key focus is, you’ll have a hard time improving results in specifically that area. Take the time to do a content gap analysis and fill content gaps with high-quality, relevant content.
