The Marketers’ Guide To Conducting an In-Depth Content Gap Analysis to Outrank Competitors

Marketers find themselves at their wits’ end when brainstorming fresh content ideas. Coming up with that perfect content strategy that outranks competitors and meets buyers in different stages of their journey is also not a cakewalk. 

This is where a content gap analysis can help. It involves three key steps: identifying your competitors, analyzing their content, and finding gaps in your own content strategy. Following this process, you can generate high-quality content ideas to fill in gaps, monitor your competitors, and beat their SERP rankings. 

We at Mavlers have twelve-plus years of experience conducting content gap analyses for clients who contact us for SEO requirements. Having successfully helped them fix and identify gaps in their current content strategies, we can help you with some insider details, too! 

This blog will walk you through the following:

• What is a content gap analysis?
• Why is content gap analysis important?
• Insight into the types of content gap analysis
• Tools for conducting content gap analysis

As you reach the end of the article, you will be better able to conduct the right content gap analysis for your business website and choose from an array of tools to start reaping the benefits in real-time. 

Let’s hit the ground running, people!

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What is a content gap analysis?

Simply put, you peruse your competitors’ existing content and use it as a yardstick to identify gaps in your website’s content. You could also map out your consumers’/buyers’ journey and see if any touchpoint remains unmatched with a specific piece of content.

Addressing and identifying these gaps can improve your content’s relevance, authority, and search engine rankings.

Why is content gap analysis important?

Understanding why content gap analysis is important is crucial. This process helps improve the quality and comprehensiveness of your content and provides valuable insights into your competitors’ content strategies. Here are some key benefits of content gap analysis:

• Enhanced SEO performance: By filling in content gaps, you can improve your search engine rankings, drive more organic traffic, and increase visibility.

• Better audience engagement: Content that meets your audience’s specific needs and interests is more likely to engage and convert.

• Competitive advantage: Identifying and addressing content gaps can give you a significant edge over competitors who might be overlooking these opportunities.

Insight into the types of content gap analysis

Now that we have a foundational understanding let’s explore the three main types of content gap analysis that can help you outrank your competitors:

• Keyword gap analysis

• Content performance gap analysis

• Competitor content gap analysis

1. Keyword gap analysis

Keyword gap analysis focuses on identifying the keywords that your competitors are ranking for, but you are not. This type of analysis is essential for understanding the opportunities you’re missing and for discovering new keywords to target in your content strategy.

How to do a keyword gap analysis:

1. Identify competitors: Start by identifying your main competitors. These websites consistently rank higher than yours for relevant search terms.
2. Use content gap analysis tools: Utilize tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to conduct a keyword gap analysis. These tools can compare your domain with your competitors’ and highlight the keywords they rank for that you don’t.
3. Analyze results: Look at the list of missing keywords and prioritize them based on search volume, relevance, and difficulty. This will help you focus on the most impactful keywords.
4. Create or optimize content: Develop new content targeting these keywords or optimize existing content to include these terms naturally.

Benefits of keyword gap analysis:

1. Identifies opportunities: Uncovering high-volume, low-competition keywords that your competitors are ranking for but you aren’t.
2. Improves SEO: Enhancing your keyword strategy can improve rankings and more organic traffic.
3. Informs content creation: Provides direction for creating new content that fills gaps in your current strategy.

Example of keyword gap analysis:

Suppose you run a travel blog, and your competitor ranks for keywords like “best travel destinations 2024” and “budget travel tips.” Conducting a keyword gap analysis might reveal high-potential keywords you haven’t targeted yet, guiding you to create content around these topics.

2. Content performance gap analysis

Content performance gap analysis evaluates how well your own content is performing. The primary focus is on understanding which of your content pieces resonate most with your audience and identifying areas where your content needs improvement.

How to do a content performance gap analysis:

1. Gather data: Use tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to collect data on your content’s performance.
2. Identify top performers: Determine which content pieces perform best on your site.
3. Analyze metrics: Look at performance metrics to understand why certain content pieces perform well or poorly.
4. Optimize content: Use these insights to optimize existing content and create new content to fill performance gaps.

Benefits of content performance gap analysis:

1. Increases engagement: By focusing on content that resonates with your audience, you can increase engagement and reduce bounce rates.
2. Boosts conversion rates: Understanding what drives conversions can help you create more effective content.
3. Enhances content strategy: Provides data-driven insights to refine your content strategy and focus on high-impact areas.

Example of a revision in competitor performance gap analysis:

• Original: “Basic Digital Marketing Tips” (500 words, text-only)

• Revised: “Basic Digital Marketing Tips” (1,500 words, includes infographics, step-by-step guides, and videos)

3. Competitor gap content analysis

Competitor gap content analysis focuses on comparing your content with that of your competitors to identify areas where their content excels and yours does not. This type of analysis is critical for understanding the competitive landscape and finding ways to differentiate your content.

How to do a competitor gap content analysis:

1. Identify key competitors: Determine who your main competitors are in your industry or niche.
2. Analyze competitor content: Use tools like BuzzSumo, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to analyze your competitors’ top-performing content. Look at factors such as topics, formats, length, and engagement metrics.
3. Identify gaps: Compare your content with that of your competitors to identify areas where they provide more value, detail, or innovation.
4. Benchmarking: Establish benchmarks based on competitor performance to set goals for your content.
5. Develop a plan: Create a plan to address these gaps by improving your existing content or creating new content that offers more value.

Benefits of competitor gap content analysis:

1. Understand market position: This helps you understand where you stand compared to competitors.
2. Find unique opportunities: Identify areas where you can offer unique insights or content that competitors lack.
3. Improve content quality: Drives improvements in content quality by learning from what works well for others.

Example of competitor gap content analysis:

If a competitor’s blog post on “content marketing trends” has significantly more shares and comments than yours, analyze their post to see what they are doing differently. They might use more up-to-date data, better graphics, or compelling calls to action. Use these insights to enhance your content.

Tools for conducting content gap analysis

Conducting a thorough content gap analysis requires the use of various tools that provide insights into your content’s performance, keyword gaps, and competitive landscape. Here are some of the most popular and effective tools used for conducting content gap analysis, along with detailed explanations of their functionalities and benefits.

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool that provides in-depth insights into your website’s traffic and user behavior.

Key features:

1. Traffic analysis: Track the number of visitors to your site, their geographic locations, and the devices they use.
2. User behavior: Understand how users navigate your site, which pages they visit, and how long they stay on each page.
3. Conversion tracking: Measure the effectiveness of your content in driving conversions, such as sign-ups, purchases, or other goal completions.
4. Content performance: Analyze metrics like page views, bounce rates, average session duration, and exit rates for each piece of content.

Benefits:

1. Helps identify high-performing and underperforming content.
2. Provides data to optimize content for better user engagement and conversions.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO toolset that provides comprehensive data on your website’s backlinks, keywords, and overall search performance.

Key features:

1. Site Explorer: Analyze your site’s backlinks, organic traffic, and keywords.
2. Content gap: Identify keywords that competitors rank for, but you don’t.
3. Keywords Explorer: Conduct keyword research to find high-volume, low-competition keywords.
4. Content Explorer: Discover top-performing content in your niche based on social shares, backlinks, and organic traffic.

Benefits:

1. Provides detailed keyword gap analysis to uncover new keyword opportunities.
2. Helps in understanding competitors’ content strategies and identifying gaps.

3. SEMrush

SEMrush is an all-in-one marketing toolkit that offers tools for SEO, content marketing, competitor analysis, and more.

Key features:

1. Keyword gap: Compare your domain with competitors to identify keyword opportunities.
2. Organic research: Analyze competitors’ organic search rankings and traffic.
3. Content analyzer: Measure the performance of your content and compare it with competitors.
4. Topic research: Find popular topics and questions in your niche to create engaging content.

Benefits:

1. Offers a holistic view of your content’s SEO performance and competitor insights.
2. Helps in finding content gaps and opportunities for creating new, valuable content.

4. Moz

Moz provides SEO software and tools for keyword research, link building, site audits, and more.

Key features:

1. Keyword Explorer: Discover and prioritize the best keywords to target.
2. Link Explorer: Analyze your backlink profile and that of your competitors.
3. On-page grader: Evaluate the SEO performance of individual pages and get optimization recommendations.
4. Content suggestions: Find content ideas based on keyword data and search trends.

Benefits:

1. Helps in identifying keyword gaps and optimizing on-page SEO.
2. Provides actionable insights to improve content quality and search rankings.

5. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content research and analysis tool that helps you discover popular content and influencers in your niche.

Key features:

1. Content research: Find top-performing content based on social shares, engagement, and backlinks.
2. Competitor analysis: Analyze the content strategies of your competitors.
3. Content alerts: Get notified about trending content and keywords in your industry.
4. Influencer identification: Identify key influencers who can help promote your content.

Benefits:

1. Helps in understanding what type of content resonates with your audience.
2. Provides insights into competitors’ content performance and social media strategies.

6. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a keyword research and SEO tool that offers insights into traffic, keywords, and competitors.

Key features:

1. Keyword overview: Get data on keyword search volume, CPC, and competition.
2. Top SEO Pages: See which pages on your site drive the most traffic and compare them with competitors.
3. Content ideas: Find content ideas based on keyword data and search trends.
4. SEO analyzer: Conduct site audits to identify SEO issues and get recommendations.

Benefits:

1. Provides a user-friendly interface for keyword research and content analysis.
2. Helps identify content opportunities and improve SEO performance.

7. Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawling tool that helps you audit and analyze your site’s SEO performance.

Key features:

1. Site audits: Crawl your site to identify SEO issues like broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags.
2. Content analysis: Analyze page titles, meta descriptions, and headers to ensure they are optimized for SEO.
3. Competitor analysis: Crawl competitor sites to understand their content structure and SEO strategies.

Benefits:

1. Helps identify and fix on-page SEO issues.
2. Provides insights into how competitors structure their content for better SEO performance.

8. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a keyword tool that visualizes search questions and autocomplete searches in an easy-to-understand format.

Key features:

1. Question discovery: Find out what questions people are asking about a particular topic.
2. Keyword visualization: See a visual representation of search queries related to your keywords.
3. Content ideas: Get ideas for content based on the questions and phrases people are searching for.

Benefits:

1. Helps in understanding the queries and concerns of your audience.
2. Provides inspiration for creating content that answers specific user questions.

9. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.

Key features:

1. Performance reports: Track your site’s search performance, including clicks, impressions, and average position.
2. Index coverage: Monitor how well Google is indexing your site.
3. URL inspection: Check individual URLs to see how they are performing in search results.
4. Search analytics: Analyze your site’s search traffic and performance for specific keywords.

Benefits:

1. Provides direct insights from Google on how your site performs in search results.
2. Helps in identifying and fixing issues that might be affecting your search rankings.

Summary

A comprehensive content gap analysis is essential for staying ahead in the competitive digital landscape. By identifying and addressing gaps in your content strategy, you can improve your SEO performance, engage your audience more effectively, and gain a competitive edge.

Whether you focus on keyword gap analysis, content performance gap analysis, or competitor gap content analysis, the insights gained from these processes are invaluable. Utilize the right tools, both premium and free, to aid in your analysis and continuously refine your content strategy based on the findings.

Incorporate these strategies into your regular content audits to ensure your content remains relevant, comprehensive, and authoritative. With a well-executed content gap analysis, you’ll be well on your way to outranking your competitors and achieving your digital marketing goals.