You can be the most amazing content writer in the world, but even so, your content won’t be perfect 100% of the time. You’ll make mistakes and miss opportunities. Your site traffic will fall and your potential customers will bounce.

You can improve your content to give your business a better chance at winning over your audience, however. The key is to find content gaps in your content and close them.

What is a content gap?

Think of a content gap as a hole in your existing content that can be filled. (If you’re snort-laughing after reading that sentence, just know that we are, too. We’re content experts with dirty minds and immature senses of humor.

ANYWAY, to find content gaps, you evaluate your existing content and pinpoint what’s missing or what can be improved. You’ll better understand what your content is missing and what you could be writing. 

Finding and closing your content gaps is also called performing a content gap analysis, if you wanna get fancy. But whatever you call it, this strategy will help you:

• Come up with fresh content ideas
• Increase site traffic
• Engage your readers with content they want to see
• Improve your SEO
• Convert customers

All things we small biz owners want, right? So, let’s talk about how to find content gaps.

How to find content gaps and fix them

Audit your content

Your first step in finding and closing those content gaps is to look over your existing content. Audit your current content to figure out what’s performing well, what can be expanded into other content, what can be updated or optimized, and so on.

We suggest auditing your:

• Home page
• Services or product pages
• FAQ page
• Blog posts
• Email sequences
• Social media content
• Freebies or downloadables
• Other content like podcast show notes, opt-in pages, etc.

When reviewing your content, ask yourself these questions:

• What’s the main idea or topic of this content?
• Can I pull other content ideas or topics from this piece of content?
• Can this be optimized, updated, or expanded?
• Did this content perform well, or not so much? How can that be fixed?

Our blog post on using content pillars in your content strategy has even more tips on performing a content audit, so be sure to give that a read.

Your content gap solution

Once you’ve gathered answers to questions in your audit, content gaps will start to emerge. 

Let’s say you’re a coach for business owners who talks about time management, finding new clients, operations and all that good stuff. During your content audit, you realize that you often mention working with new biz owners, but don’t have any resources for those people, like pursuing a new idea or creating a brand new offer. 

Hello, content gaps. And hello, content gap solutions.

Make a list of what you observed when auditing your content. Then, figure out how each observation can be used in your content strategy, just like we talked about above.

Review your customer journey

People who visit your website may not be ready to buy what you’re selling. Sometimes they’re checking out your brand, window-shopping, comparing, or looking for more information.

Keep that in mind, because you should be providing content to meet your customer’s needs on every step of their journey. Helpful, valuable content that answers questions that they have and positions your offers as the solution.

Hopefully you already have your customer journey mapped out, since that’s a pretty big marketing task all on its own. We like this comprehensive guide to creating your own map.

Your content gap solution

Got your map handy? Cool. 

Now, pick a starting point of your customer journey and an endpoint. Move along the journey from Point A to Point B and think about what questions they have, what options they might look over, or what information they need. That’s how you’ll identify your content gaps.

For example, someone lands on our website because they’re thinking of hiring a writer for their biz, but they’re not sure whether they really need one. They look through our work, check out our services, maybe even jump over to our Instagram page. They look at other similar accounts like ours.

But wait! This hypothetical person then comes back to our site to browse the blog. They skim posts like reasons you shouldn’t use a content mill and the real value of content marketing. And then they find signs you’re ready to hire a copywriter.

That does it. They’re convinced they need a writer, and what’s more, they want to work with Uncanny Content directly. (We are pretty awesome, after all.) So they contact us and schedule a call. 

If we didn’t have our shit together on our blog and our website, our content gaps in this hypothetical situation might be:

• What does a content writer do? What can a writer do for you?
• What kind of content do you need for your website?
• How about other content for emails, or social media, or blogs?
• Where can you hire a content writer?
• Is content even worth investing in?
• What does good writing for a business look like?

See how all of these questions can be answered while someone is browsing our site? That’s what you want. Don’t leave a site visitor’s questions unanswered.

See what your competitors are doing

Last but not least, identify your content gaps by keeping an eye on the competition. How does your website or blog measure up to other brands in your industry?

Jot down a list of your competitors. Then, write a list of their content. Dig deeper into their content; don’t just skim their website or scroll through their Instagram. Sign up for their email newsletter or download their latest freebie. Check out their YouTube channel or online course.

Think about their customer journey and compare it to your own. Consider how their content strategy is different, too. 

Some helpful questions to mull over:

• Do they encourage customers to take action with different types of content? 
• What keywords are they using? 
• What’s the most popular content of theirs? What shows up first in search results?
• How frequently do they publish new content?
• What do you like about their content? What do you dislike?

Your content gap solution

Now, take your research findings and compare it to your own content strategy. Are there content topics your competitors covered but you haven’t? Are there topics none of you has written about yet?

If you don’t want to write content on a particular topic because it’s been done to death, instead think about what unique perspective you bring to the table. Or, tackle the topic in a less popular format. All your competitors wrote about this topic on their blogs? Create an infographic or a series of TikToks to keep it fresh.

Gentle reminder that we’re not telling you to copy what the competition is doing. What works for one brand or business may not work for another. Plus, copying is illegal and rude AF. Use them as inspiration for what you can do better.

Psst…it might be a good idea to conduct a full-blown competitive content analysis.

Bridge the gap

Content gaps can add unexpected obstacles to your customer journey. They can turn away potential customers and with that, potential revenue for your biz. 

To find content gaps, you need to audit your content, review your customer journey, and keep an eye on your competition. Analyze your results and figure out how you can close these content gaps…then watch your metrics improve.