‍What is Content Gap Analysis?

A content gap analysis is a strategic method for identifying and optimizing the content of a website. Content gap analysis is the process of reviewing and then identifying the content that is needed to fill the “gap” between the current state and future state.

People all over the world have different views on this particular topic. Some people review content gap analysis as the difference between what the audience is looking for and what they find online. Some people view it as a competitor analysis where we look at our competitor’s content structure to identify topics and keywords they are currently ranking better for so that we could also target with our new content.

By considering these views, we can also say content gap analysis is the content you need to be creating next in order to attain your current goals.

According to research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, of the companies employing content marketing, fewer than half say their efforts are effective. Many content marketers are turning to Content Gap Analysis to identify and fill gaps in their content inventory.

Why should we conduct Content Gap Analysis?

1) Makes communication effective with potential buyers

It’s a common misconception for people to think of the content gap as a “gap” or a barrier between an organization and its competitor yet in the actual sense, it is the gap between a company and its potential buyers.

This gap represents how best your content strategy meets the needs of the buyers at every stage of their journey.

The aim for any content strategy is to create the go-to content for prospects and buyers

If you do not provide your customers with all the information that they are looking for, be prepared to lose your buyers. A content gap analysis makes sure that you do not give such an opportunity to your competitors and helps you by filling in the gaps so that the potential customers can stay on your website for longer.

2) Taking advantage of SEO opportunity

Content gap analysis is about developing content ideas and topics to handle valuable traffic. But because of the competition in today’s industries, we need to overlap between our content and competitor’s content.

This is the reason to make sure our content ranks higher than our competitors for specific keywords and a content gap analysis identifies high-value content in the industry to improve our search visibility specifically for topics we don’t currently rank for.

Content gap analysis makes the picture clearer and helps us know all the objectives our competitors rank for but we do not.

3) Content gap analysis acts as a Performance Indicator

A gap analysis can also be applied to key performance indicators like new customer acquisition, average order amount, or return on investment(ROI). A mobile company could look for the reasons that caused them to miss their customer acquisition goal or an automobile industry could seek the reasons they didn’t process as much care as expected.

The process of conducting Content Gap Analysis

For most companies, the destination is clear. The goal is always more profits but the goal is achieved only when the customers are successful on their journey too.

• Make the destination clear

First things first-what are you trying to accomplish through content gap analysis? What do you want to improve? Knowing our goals beforehand is necessary to be able to make the destination clear. Your goals could focus on traffic, sales, leads, search engine rankings, profits and everything that will enhance your content marketing strategy and achieve better results.

• Understanding your target audience

Who are the target audience? How well do you know your target audience? What are their preferences and where do they reside? Your content gap analysis would not be effective until you know your customers well along with their lifestyles and personas. By identifying things like basic demographics, interests, needs you can understand your target audience better.

Content Gap Analysis Examples

While there are a multitude of business areas like accounting, sales, customer service and situations that can use the gap analysis process, there are few examples that illustrate the broad range of ways a company can use a gap analysis.

• New product launch: After an organization launches a new product, they might do a gap analysis to determine why sales didn’t meet estimates.
• Productivity: When a factory’s productivity is not meeting expectations, targeted buyers’ needs, or the set of business requirements that were laid out a gap analysis can help determine what process to fix.
• Supply Management: If a clinic finds itself running short of supplies on a regular basis, they could perform a gap analysis to identify the reason why.
• Individual Assessment: A team leader at an accounting firm can have each member perform a gap analysis on themselves, and use those results not only to find targets to improve each person’s performance, but also to draw out the best practices that everyone can adopt.
• Sales Performance: A manufacturer can look at the sales performance of their catalog of products to make sure they are producing the right mix, and use the result to maximize their production–possibility frontier.