Even great websites and prolific writers can have sneaky “content gaps.” Finding and dealing with them protects your marketing strategy from failure. In this curated article, I share tips from SEO guru, Neil Patel, to do just that.
Content gaps refer to questions people search for, but your website doesn’t cover the answers. That means you either don’t show up on a search, or what is there doesn’t answer the searcher’s question.
I recently researched flights from Portland, Oregon, to the U.K. to visit family. We have flown from PDX to HUY numerous times, but nothing came up in my search.
After digging, I found flights, but they weren’t the ones we’d used in the past. Instead of one stop, there were two or three.
We have to go to Portland, Seattle, San Franciso, or Salt Lake City. Then sometimes to a second hub. And then wait. For hours. In some cases, layovers were 21 hours.
Crazy schedules and inflated prices meant we didn’t book.
Like our missing flight, your website can have content gaps.
You may address a search topic but not provide the answers people need.
Over 200 million long tail keywords have between 10 and 1,000 monthly searches. For your business, that's a chance to help searchers in a less competitive arena.
Even if your business shows up in search results, you may still be missing sales.
A clue happens when people visit your pages. If they bounced quickly, they didn’t find their answer. It doesn’t mean your content is wrong — it’s just not the answer they needed.
Consider this scenario. You have content that talks about getting adequate sleep for health. But what if the searcher wants an app to track sleep? Or what if they’re trying to learn how to stay asleep longer?
So the answer in your content missed their need. But there’s a valuable chance here. You can keep them on your website longer by finding and answering missed questions.
First, you need to start looking for:
Keyword gaps.
Topic gaps.
Media gaps.
Many businesses focus on short keywords. Unfortunately, this means they’re doing battle on a crowded playing field. And they miss less addressed longtail keyword searches.
2. Next, consider what additional topics are relevant to your viewers. Then, start a list of these for ongoing fresh content.
3. Finally, imagine what you could gain by including attention-grabbing media in your content! We know that all forms of media grab and keep attention. Just keep it relevant and helpful to your audience.
Using an SEO tool like Ubersuggest simplifies doing a gap analysis. You can run a gap analysis on your website and even analyze your competitor’s site. It’s a simple, intuitive process, and you can save the results.
A complete analysis may take you back to each step of your customer journey. For example, do you answer all of the buyer's questions for each phase?
Do you offer products and services that help buyers in each phase? Is there content on your website on each of these? If they don’t exist, consider adding them.
And do they answer both the short and long tail keyword search queries? Again, find the gap, answer the need and boost your traffic.
One last thought is to evaluate content for freshness. If it’s over a year old, update it with a new look or content.
Protect yourself. Make sure that dated content or information gaps aren’t eroding website rankings, visitors, and sales.
When working with clients, we take a good look at their target audience and determine what uniqueness we can bring out. Then we choose our marketing strategy: blogs, content, newsletters, or all of them. Of course, I make sure all content is fresh and relevant.
The right content in the right places gets the best results - so your business grows. Need help? Message me. www.jcpwellnesscopy.com.
Click here if you'd like to read the full Content Gap article by Neil Patel.
Judith Culp Pearson receives three top honors
at the annual Society of Permanent Cosmetic Professionals in
Ft. Worth, Texas - October 7-9, 2023
