How to Find and Fill Content Gaps (With Real Examples)

A quick win? Filling in the gaps.

Gaps in your own content.

Gaps in your competitors’ content.

Gaps in the entire internet’s content.

And that’s where content gap analysis comes in.

Here’s how 👇

How to Find and Fill Content Gaps

Content gap analysis from start to finish—lesssgo!

1. What Are Content Gaps?

A content gap is a missing piece of information that users are searching for online—a lack of adequate answers to potential questions or relevant information on a specific subject.

Here are different types of content gaps:

Topic gaps:

• Missing information on key aspects of a topic relevant to an audience.
• Not covering niche areas within a broader topic.
• Failing to address emerging trends or questions related to an industry.

Keyword gaps:

• Competitors ranking for high-volume keywords that your content doesn’t target.
• Not optimizing for long-tail keywords with high search intent.
• Missing relevant keyword variations in your content.

Media gaps:

• Lack of visual content like infographics, videos, or images to support written text.
• Not utilizing interactive elements like quizzes or calculators.
• Absence of different content formats to cater to diverse learning styles.

Other potential content gaps:

• Not providing enough in-depth information on a topic.
• Failing to match content to the user’s search intent (e.g., providing product reviews when users are looking for tutorials).
• Not catering content to specific regional needs or audiences.
• Missing content for different stages of the sales funnel (awareness, consideration, decision).

And why are content gaps a problem? There are two main issues:

For one, if a site isn’t tackling important topics or keywords related to its niche, search engines may not see a site as relevant or authoritative, resulting in lower rankings and less organic traffic.

If visitors can’t find the information they need, they’ll likely leave the site, leading to higher bounce rates, lower engagement, and fewer conversions.

2. Finding Content Gaps

With a couple of SEO tools (I’ll be using Ahrefs and Google Search Console), you can pretty quickly identify content gaps to target.

Content Gap Analysis

You can use Semrush or Moz to conduct content gap analysis, but I’ll be using Ahrefs. Here’s how:

1. Fire up the platform, and from the top navigation menu, select Competitor Analysis.
2. Make sure the Competitive Analysis tool is set to keywords.
3. Then, under “This target doesn’t rank for,” enter your domain’s URL.
4. Next, manually enter your competitors’ URLs or allow Ahref’s to fill in the gaps and suggest some to you based on their data. If you’d like to add more than three competitors, hit the + Competitor button.
5. Once that’s all done, hit the big orange button: Show keyword opportunities.

   

6. Last, to filter out AI overviews, sitelinks, image packs, X posts, etc., toggle the “Main position only” button to on.
   

7. Unless you want your competitors’ branded keywords included in your results, I’d suggest filtering those out, too. To do this, click + More filters, and from the drop-down menus, select Doesn’t contain and Partial match. Then, enter your competitors’ names. Hit Apply and then Show results.

   

8. You can also exclude low-volume keywords by adding a volume filter. Use your discretion here, but I’m going to filter out anything that has a search volume lower than 30 searches per month. To do this, hit + More filters again, select Volume, and in the From text box, enter 30. Hit Apply and Show results.

   

9. To filter out high-competition keywords, hit + More filters, KD, enter your target (I’ve shot for a keyword difficulty of 50), hit Apply, and then Show results.

   

10. Once you’ve filtered out all the noise, select Export to download the data as a CSV file.

In total, my analysis has revealed 779 keywords that our competitors were ranking in the top 10 and we weren’t ranking for in the top 100. Not bad for five minutes of work.

Content Decay

A once well-performing page may start to slide down the SERPs and increasingly receive less and less traffic. This is called content decay. Using the Ahrefs Site Audit tool, we can quickly uncover content gaps in existing pages. Here’s how:

1. From the top navigation menu, select Site Audit. Then, run a site audit. Once the site audit is complete, select Page explorer from the navigation menu on the left-hand side.

   

2. Select Advanced filter. Then, from the two drop-down menus, change the rule to Organic traffic and Dropped by at least %. I’ve decided to go with 20% for this analysis, but use your own discretion here and select a number that you feel is right. Hit Apply.
   
3. Finally, order the Changes column from most to least. This will reveal the pages that have seen the largest drops in organic traffic.

   
   

Now comes the hard part: why did these pages you’ve uncovered experience a drop in traffic? Look at the SERPs for the keywords each page is ranking for, click on the top-ranking pages, and ask yourself: what does this content offer that mine doesn’t? What content gaps does my page have? What are my competitors offering that I’m not?

If you can answer these questions and update and improve your content, you’ll be on your way to filling those content gaps and getting the previously well-performing pages back to the top of the search results. Quick win!

3. Prioritizing Content Gaps

Before you take these new strategies and release them into the wild, understand that any old content gap isn’t necessarily a content gap that you want to fill. Some topics are keywords are simply a waste of time.

Somewhere between potential, feasibility, and relevance is where you want to land.

Of course, you want to target gaps that have the potential to drive traffic and conversions, but you need to consider the competition level and the resources required to create content that will have some likelihood of success.

Here’s how to strike that balance:

• Start by looking at the search volume for the keywords associated with each gap. The higher the search volume, the greater the potential for organic traffic. Although, that’s not the entire story. Some low search volume keywords have high intent. Meaning, they may not have a high search volume, but the traffic they do attract is ready to convert.
• Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to assess the keyword difficulty and the competition for each gap. If the competition is fierce and you don’t have the authority to compete, prioritize gaps with lower competition or focus on long-tail keywords that are more specific and less competitive.
• Some gaps might be relevant to your audience’s interests but not directly related to your business goals. Prioritize gaps that align with driving leads and conversions.
• Creating high-quality content takes time, effort, and resources, particularly for high-competition keywords. Consider the resources you have available and prioritize gaps that you can realistically fill with the resources you have. Don’t try to tackle a massive content project if you only have a limited budget and a small team.

To really solidify these concepts in your mind, let’s look at an example. Here are the keywords I pulled from Ahrefs earlier in our content gap analysis. In green, I’ve highlighted some keywords that we could target, and in red, I’ve highlighted some that we shouldn’t necessarily target.

Here’s my logic behind these decisions.

Keywords I’d target:

• “link building outreach” – This is a no-brainer. It’s highly relevant to Loganix’s (that’s us) services and targets an audience actively seeking link-building solutions. Plus, with a healthy search volume and manageable keyword difficulty, it’s an opportunity to attract qualified traffic and potential customers.
• “buy backlinks” – Another no-brainer. It’s not just a relevant keyword; it’s a direct reflection of our service offerings. If we created content that educated potential clients about the process of buying backlinks and the importance of backlink quality, we could position ourselves as the go-to experts in this space.
• “link building specialist” – This keyword directly targets the type of clients we want to attract: those who are looking for expert help with their link-building efforts. It’s a great opportunity to showcase our expertise and attract qualified leads.

Keywords I’d give the flick:

• “linkbuilding bureau” – This is a branded keyword that’s likely being used by a competitor. Targeting this keyword would be a waste of resources, as it’s unlikely to generate much traffic or sales for Loganix.
• “innovative digital marketing” – This keyword is too broad and generic. It doesn’t have a clear search intent and could attract a wide range of irrelevant traffic. Our content team is better off focusing on more specific keywords that are directly related to our services.
• “buy backlinks cheap” – We don’t sell “cheap” backlinks. Our services are premium, and targeting this keyword could attract the wrong type of clients (those who are looking for a quick fix or a bargain-basement solution). Align your content with your brand positioning and ideal customer.

4. Creating Gap-Filling Content

Okay, to the final piece of this puzzle: actually filling those gaps in your content. How do you go about this?

First, you’ll want a plan.

Content Plan

Your content plan should include:

• A definition of your target audience. The who’s-who of who you’re creating content for and what their needs and interests are.
• An outline of what you want to achieve with your content, such as increased traffic, leads, or brand awareness.
• The identified, relevant keywords from earlier.
• A breakdown of the content format/s you’re going to use, such as blog posts, articles, infographics, or videos.
• A plan for how you will promote your content to reach your target audience.

Quality Benchmarks

There’s not much use in creating content that misses the mark. What a waste of time. To make sure this isn’t the reality of all your hard work, you’ll want to decide on some quality benchmarks. That way, you have some gauge on whether your content is likely to kill it or fall flat.

Here are the quality benchmarks you’ll want to track:

• Freshness: Keep your content up-to-date and relevant. Regularly update your existing content with new information and insights.
• Readability: Write in a clear, concise, and jargon-free style. Use simple words and avoid overly complex language.
• Expertise: Demonstrate your knowledge and authority by backing up your claims with data, research, and real-world examples.
• Experience: Share your own insights, successes, and failures to build trust and authenticity with your audience.
• Thoroughness: Go deep into topics and provide comprehensive information that answers your audience’s questions and addresses their concerns.
• Engagement: Create content that encourages interaction and sharing. Use visuals, interactive elements, and a conversational tone to keep your audience engaged.
• Conversions: Your content should contribute to your business goals. Track conversions and analyze how your content is influencing those conversions.
• SEO metrics: Monitor SEO metrics like time-on-page and bounce rate to understand how users are interacting with your content and identify areas for improvement.
• Audience feedback: Gather feedback from your audience through comments, surveys, and social media to understand their needs and preferences.

Conclusion and Next Steps

Alright, you’ve landed. Nice work!

But where to next?

Well, if you need a bit of a hand, Loganix is here to give you a leg up.

Our team of expert SEOs and content strategists will help you develop a winning content strategy and give everything a nice little boost with some quality backlinks.

👉 To get started, simply head to our SEO services page. 👈