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How To Identify a Content Gap on Your Website
Are you missing out on an opportunity to bring more traffic to your website? If you’ve got a content gap on your site, that can be a chance to get the jump on your competition. A content gap is when users seek something out on the web but do not find it in the search results.
This means there’s a gap in the market that needs to be filled — and if you’re the first one to fill it, you might see positive movement in rankings.
If you’re creating content online, one of the best ways to give your company a competitive advantage is to fill a niche that no one else has filled yet — and here’s how you can get started.
Identifying Content Gaps
The first step in determining what content your audience is looking for is to know what your audience is. It can be tempting to cast a wide net and go for as large an audience as possible, but often that leads to content that isn’t actually geared to anyone.
Every company does better when they specialize in a specific audience with room for growth.
If you have an active social media presence — and you should — make sure you’re keeping up on what the visitors to your pages are saying.
If they’re asking a question repeatedly, the odds are there’s something they’re looking for that you’re not providing yet. It’s best to have someone managing your social media to ensure that this information doesn’t get overlooked.
Make sure to keep an eye on your competitors in your general field. This doesn’t mean those offering the exact same thing you are — if someone is adjacent, they might be offering a service that you don’t and showing you the path to growing your audience. It’s even better if you can debut some original content that no one in your market is offering.
Finally, take a look at some of your old content, especially those that have performed best. What do they have in common? What do audiences seem to respond to?
Even if something is successful, there may be room for growth or a follow-up that covers something that was left out of the original article. Make sure to interlink to combine audiences between the two pieces.
A Competitive Advantage
So how do you get that jump on your competition and identify your content gaps? The first step should be to look at your competitors.
Know who your competitors are and ensure you’re monitoring their website, their social media presence, and any other public content they post. Monitoring the other guy can be almost as important as checking up on your website.
Competitive analysis can be as simple as looking at their public content. Still, there are other ways you can legally spy on your competition and learn insider information that can help you keep pace in a competitive marketplace.
Even if they’ve gained a head start, there’s no reason not to start putting out similar content — and do it better to secure your place in the market.
If you want to start producing content that your competitor isn’t producing to fill a content gap, it’s best to start slowly.
Maybe you’re filling a gap in the market, or maybe this is a false lead, and you don’t want to invest too much in it. But to give new content the best chance of success, make sure you’re interlinking between it and your most popular relevant content.
This is also a good opportunity for backlinks because there’s a chance the content you’re starting to provide is related to another field that isn’t a direct competitor.
Linking between the two can raise both boats and bring a whole new audience into your content.
Tools
Content explorer tools can make it easy to scan the internet and better picture what content gaps are open. They give an oversight to traffic, trending topics, and link opportunities. Some common tools include:
- Ahrefs Content Explorer– Ahrefs allows you to understand current SEO trends and view metrics for competitor sites. You can better formulate your content for SEO rankings while also remaining unique. Click here to discover what else Ahrefs Content Explorer offers and how to use it to your advantage.
- SEMrush– This tool is useful for navigating keywords and trending topics. You can view the ranking keywords for any site while also viewing the traffic analytics. You can also track specific keywords to remain knowledgeable of industry shifts. Here’s a more in-depth guide on how to use SEMrush to perform a content gap analysis.
- Trendspottr– This tool is unique in that it also provides influencer targeting. This allows you to connect with key influencers in your niche. You can also search market trends while predicting possible brand reputation threats.
Find Your Niche — And Fill It
The internet is a massive ecosystem of billions of people, each logging on with a unique question or need, and it’s impossible to cover everything.
That means that no matter how good your website is at providing content, there’ll be an opening for you to fill — or a competitor will do it first. Using content explorer tools to shore up your online presence is the best way to ensure that when a million-dollar niche becomes available, you’ll be there first.
