Updated May 11, 2023
With Google’s algorithms becoming increasingly attuned to user intent, filling content gaps is integral to search engine visibility.
What is a Content Gap?
A content gap is what’s missing between what a consumer is searching for and what they find. This missing information gives businesses the opportunity to fill a gap in the market and claim their share of search engine real estate.
Why Should You Fill Content Gaps?
Filling a content gap helps your business in two main ways:
First, filling a content gap means your business fulfills search intent. If the information a consumer is searching for is outdated, low quality, or completely nonexistent, publishing helpful, thorough content that answers their questions means that you’ll climb the ranks of Google.
Second, if a potential customer is already on your website and finds that you provide a wealth of information on a topic, it’s less likely they’ll click the “back” button to return to search results, improving your website’s dwell time.
Filling content gaps means your website builds authority and relevance in the eyes of both search engines and consumers.
How to Find Content Gaps
Obviously, to fill a content gap, you need to know how to find them in the first place.
Let’s look at the three easiest ways to find your content gaps: keyword research, market research, and using search tools.
Let’s go into each of these ways to find content gaps in more detail:
- Using Keyword Research to Discover Content Gaps
If you use Ahrefs Keyword Explorer tool, you can comb through the list and determine which keywords and phrases you haven’t yet created content around.
For example, let’s say I was looking for content gaps to fill for the Amplihigher website.
We offer copywriting, content writing, and content marketing services, so, naturally, I want to try to rank our website for types of keywords related to those topics.
Typing “content writing” into the Ahrefs keyword explorer tool yields these results: