You can also use tools such as Google Analytics or Search Console to track how visitors interact with your website and identify any broken links or failing pages that need attention. Google and other search engines use algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of your content. If your website is missing information on a particular topic, it may not rank as well in search results as a website that covers that topic in depth. In fact, according to a survey by BrightEdge, 55% of marketers say that content gaps are their most significant challenge in driving organic traffic to their websites.
And their workflow is slow, and tedious and misses out on valuable data to make better decisions. However, a content gap analysis can find opportunities further up the funnel too. The right ‘top of the funnel’ (TOFU) content acts as a gateway to discovering your brand. So when they’re ready to buy, you’ve positioned yourself as the go-to option.
- Analyze your PageSeed Insights scores for mobile and desktop to get an easy idea of how much your competitors are investing in web performance optimization (WPO) on their key pages.
- How do you know what to write about when it comes to content marketing?
- You should also download a marketing calendar template, as you’ll need this for setting out your content map.
- BuzzSumo – One of the best things about using Buzzsumo is being able to see what types of content resonate most with your audience.
When you start a project, you try to contain costs by using
a thousand and one free tools to analyze your web metrics. At first I hesitated because it was less well known than Semrush or Ahrefs but I have managed to rank in the first places in Google for KW with very competitive search intentions. The functionality that has surprised me the most is the position tracking. It is very useful to control the evolution of my
keywords and see how the competition reacts. Your Keyword research has changed the way I approach the writing of posts. The amount of keywords derived
and the speed with which they are achieved, made me fall in love from the first moment.
You will look at data that might even help uncover competitors you did not know existed, such as an exclusively online seller that does not compete with you at all in the brick-and-mortar sector. With SEO it’s important to think of a competitor as any entity that ranks higher than you for your essential keywords, whether or not it is an organization you traditionally consider a competitor. Though it may sound complicated, it’s easier than you think, especially with the right subject matter experts at your side. Hiring a marketing agency can ensure your keyword gap analysis is effective—and even help you implement your findings into your content marketing strategy. So it’s no surprise that SpyFu would also have decent tools for keyword gap analysis — and content gap analysis by extension.
For starters, the content gap analysis SEMRush platform does offer a free tier. If you sign up for their site, you can get limited use of their services. You could also take full advantage of the software with a 7-day free trial, however, that will require you to put in your banking information. You can also comb through the sites that come out on top of search engines. Find out if there are any topics they’re covering that you’re not, or if there are areas you could improve on. You may also find your competitor’s content lacking certain information, allowing you to fill that niche.
This is a clear example of the types of insights you can get from a content gap analysis, and how it can lead to actionable ideas to improve your website and SEO. A content gap analysis should not be a one-off thing, but should ideally be done regularly in order to stay on top of what your competitors are doing. There are many tools out there that will help you identify the keyword gap including, but not limited to, SEMrush. The tools on these platforms allow for a specific page on a competitor’s site to be analysed, identifying which keywords that page is ranking for. Lucky for us, Ahrefs has made it really easy to do content gap analysis.
By comparing the keywords that both your site and the potential backlink site rank for, it determines if there is any overlap in topics. If there is no overlap, then the site is not a good fit for backlinking purposes. Understanding the wisdom of the crowds is simple – if two or more of your competitors rank for a particular keyword or have a backlink from a specific site, it’s worth pursuing for your own website. Link gaps refer to the backlinks that your competitors have acquired, but your website has not. In other words, link gaps highlight the differences in the link profiles between your website and your top competitors. We recommend using SEMRush to get started, as it provides excellent insights into where your content can be improved compared to your competitors.
Why Do You Want Your Business To Do A Gap Analysis?
Additionally, you want to understand how they have optimised the page with relevant keywords and how the page is being internally linked. For example, has the metadata been optimised for certain keywords and has the page has been linked to from the top navigation of the website. When reviewing the domains performing well, you will want to see if the domain has one URL ranking for a number of keywords in that tag or if there are several URLs ranking for keywords in the tag. I would be more inclined to review the second website to understand why they are consistently performing well for a large % of the keywords. To figure out which website is performing best for a tag it is usually the domain which is ranking for the most amount of keywords but also has the best average rank.
There Are Categories For The Blog
The Wix website builder offers a complete solution from enterprise-grade infrastructure and business features to advanced SEO and marketing tools–enabling anyone to create and grow online. Now that you’ve selected the right pillar to focus on, it’s worth your time to look a little bit deeper into the numbers to understand what the right strategies for your brand are. Look at the total number of keywords that your competitors rank for and then take a deeper dive by position. In the very early days of its ranking algorithm, Google extrapolated the way that the world of academia uses citations (the more cited a study is, the more one can trust it). As the word suggests, “ranking” involves comparing content against other content and ordering them by how likely it is that a given page satisfies the user’s intent.
You Can Get All The Tools You Need In One Place
In the competitive space of digital marketing, your success will be limited if you don’t incorporate competitive analysis. The first way to do this is by keeping track of your organic search traffic before and after you publish new content. Marketing is all about understanding your customer and what they want. In order to improve your website’s ranking, you need to first identify and fill the content gaps that are preventing you from ranking higher.
The second strain of content gap analysis more so involves raw keyword research. It’s all about finding not only the gaps of what you’re not doing…but also what your competitors are not doing. An SEO gap analysis helps you identify areas where you’re falling behind your competitors and gives you actionable insights to improve your SEO strategy. By identifying gaps in your SEO efforts and opportunities to improve, you can get ahead of your competitors and rank higher on SERPs. Then enter your main competitors and click “Compare.” The keyword gap tool will show you a list of keywords your competitors rank for and where you appear in the SERPs for those same words.
Now, let’s review your SEO performance so that you have something to compare against your competitors later on. MEDIUM SEO GAP JOIN to do this is using a spreadsheet, so I’ve provided an empty template of my gap analysis for anyone to use. You can also prioritize which opportunities you should focus on by filtering the keyword gap results. Go to the Positions filter, Competitors, and choose to view only the terms that they are ranking for in the top 10 or 20. If you are using Semrush, you’ll go to the left menu and use the keyword gap tool. As per the clustering data, you should be able to see clusters and keywords you’re not ranking at all for.
Some competitors have an overlap with each other, and each competitor has a set of keywords only they rank for. This can help you expand your topical authority and improve your SEO rankings. Blogs, while important elements in providing information to the audience, are not the be-all and end-all of closing a content gap. When looking internally, it’s important to identify any low-quality content – such as duplication, bad grammar, keyword stuffing or excessive linking – and fix it.
If they’re on the first 2 pages (position 0-20), you’ll want to know about these keywords. This is more a reason why a content gap analysis does not happen at all (or at least very poorly). With so many approaches to a content gap analysis, it can feel overwhelming. When done properly, a content gap analysis is the unlock code to achieve incredible SEO results. When conducting content gap analysis there are a few things that you need to consider in order to get the most out of your efforts.
