Content Gap Analysis: How to Perform It in 5 Steps

Are you looking to improve your website’s content but unsure where to start? A content gap analysis can help!

This will help you identify any areas where your website content is lacking and give you ideas for new topics to blog about or pages to add to your site.

With today’s AI-powered SEO and automation tools, this process has become faster and easier than ever. From keyword clustering to brief creation, much of the heavy lifting can be automated, leaving you more time to focus on strategy and creativity.

So how do you go about conducting this analysis?

Where do you start? Which tools can you use? 🤔

Read on to find out the answers to all of these questions and more.

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👉 Skip to how to complete a content gap analysis in five steps.

What is a content gap analysis?

Content gap analysis is a process that helps marketers become aware of opportunities they may be missing. It involves taking a deep dive into the competitive landscape of your market and identifying the topics in demand that you might not yet have an article about.

This can help you determine what type of content will attract potential customers and potentially enjoy higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why do you need one?

We’ve already touched on some of the benefits, but here’s what makes content gap analysis worth your time:

1. It helps you identify content you might not have considered before

When we’re busy creating content, we’re often so focused on the tasks at hand — Is the content performing well? How do we improve it? How do we get more eyes on it?

While it’s good to stay focused, sometimes having a look at what our competitors are doing, and doing well, can help steer us in another direction we might not have thought of.

2. It helps you identify additional keywords

As a marketer, you understand the importance of having the right keyword strategy. But keyword research can be time-consuming and sometimes overwhelming.

With a solid content gap analysis, you can easily find out which keywords your competitors are ranking for and start targeting them.

3. It can boost your organic search rankings

Keeping your website up-to-date with fresh, relevant content is key to driving more organic traffic from search. Analyzing content gaps can help you identify opportunities to improve your existing content and keep you ahead of the competition.

By looking at what topics are missing on your website, you can quickly boost SEO rankings by creating content that answers user questions. Additionally, finding out which topics are causing the most interest among competitors can give you an edge when developing new content.

4. It helps you give your website visitors the right content

Once you’ve identified any content gaps, you can start creating new content, or repurposing existing content in a way that better meets the needs of your visitors.

By taking the time to do this, you can ensure that your website is giving visitors the content they really want and need.

Now that you understand what this analysis is and how it can benefit your online marketing goals, let’s get into the five-step process of performing it.

How to complete a content gap analysis in five steps

Competitor analysis
Analyze the current content on your website
Understand your audience
Develop clear goals
Fill in the gaps

1. Competitor analysis

Since a key part of a content gap analysis is studying your competitors, this is the first step.

👉 Take a look at their websites, blogs, and even YouTube or social media content. Ask yourself:

What topics are they talking about?
What content formats are they using?
Which topics get the most engagement?
How often do they publish?

Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Similarweb can help answer these questions. You can also use Google Search Console or AlsoAsked to see what related queries people are searching for.

Modern SEO tools even use AI to cluster missing topics semantically, saving you hours of manual comparison.

2. Analyze the current content on your website

Next, take inventory of what you already have.

Look at both quantity (how many posts, pages, or targeted keywords) and quality (how relevant, updated, and well-written they are).

Ask yourself:

How does your content compare to competitors in depth and tone?
Are there areas where you could go deeper or explain better?
Are you targeting the right keywords?
Is your content properly optimized and internally linked?

AI tools like MarketMuse or SurferSEO can now quickly audit your site and suggest improvements based on competitor data.

3. Understand your audience

When you’re trying to figure out what content you should be creating, it can be tempting to just look at what your competitors are doing and try to copy them. However, not every piece of content your competitor produces will be relevant to your audience.

For example, let’s say you own a fitness club and have been comparing your content to other fitness clubs in your area. You may share a part of the market, but you may want to cater to a more niche market. For instance, your fitness club might be targeting people who are interested in boxing, while another might be more for lifting, and another fitness club might focus on a younger audience, etc.

This means that not all content from your competitors will be relevant.

Understanding your audience allows you to pick the most relevant topics and leave those that don’t serve you or your audience out.

Use analytics tools to understand what your readers actually want:

Analyze search intent (informational, commercial, or transactional).
Check which topics drive engagement in GA4.
Review comments, social shares, and feedback to refine your direction.

4. Develop clear goals

To get the most out of your content gap analysis, you need to have clear goals in mind.

Are you trying to drive more website traffic? Or do you want more leads for a specific product or service?

Once you know your goals, you can then begin to identify the content that would help you to achieve those goals. Otherwise, you’ll just be gathering data without any clear purpose.

Set measurable KPIs, such as:

Higher impressions or clicks from Search Console
Improved ranking for specific topic clusters
More engagement on content updates

Take some time to think about what you want to achieve before you just start creating content for the sake of creating content. Knowing what success looks like will help you stay focused and prioritize content that delivers results.

5. Fill in the gaps

This is the exciting part — the actual content creation.

Now, once you understand the “missing” content pieces (i.e., the relevant keywords and topics you haven’t covered in your blog or website), you can start mapping out how to fill them in.

This process might either require you to create new content or improve your old content.

👉 When you’re improving your existing content, you can:

Make the blog or article intros more concise
Add visuals to help break up large chunks of content
Update links and stats
Expand sections to be more helpful and up-to-date

👉 When you’re creating new content, you’ll need to:

Decide on the content formats you’ll create (e.g., informative blog posts, infographics, videos, or whatever other types of content will resonate with your target customer base)
Write with search intent in mind
Use competitor keywords as inspiration, but offer unique insights

You can also use AI tools like ChatGPT or Jasper to generate content briefs or outline drafts — just remember to fact-check and personalize the final version.

Go to top

There’s always room for improvement 📈

Any business with an online presence can benefit from a content gap analysis. By taking the time to understand your audience and competitors, you can identify opportunities to improve your website and deliver the kind of content that will resonate with your target market.

#Content gap #analysis: how to perform it in 5 steps 📜🛣️🔍

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🎯 Use our five-step process to conduct a content gap analysis and start filling in the gaps on your site today.

Do you have questions about performing a content gap analysis? Let us know in the comments!