How to Do a Content Gap Analysis For Link Building Outreach

Intro

Link building is the process of getting other sites to link to your content, which helps you rank higher in search results.

However, link building is also the most difficult, time-consuming, and essential part of SEO. It's not enough to produce content. You have to convince people to link to it. And this can be hard, especially when you're first getting started.

Content gap analysis is an underutilized strategy for link building outreach. Let's take a closer look.

What Is a Content Gap Analysis?

A content gap analysis is a way to analyze the competition's content and find opportunities to create content that will rank well and attract links. The process involves looking at your competitors' content, target guest posts pages, and even your own site to identify gaps where content is lacking.

You're looking for content that has:

1. A high volume of linking domains
2. A large number of social shares
3. Relevant to the work you produce for your or your clients

These factors will help you prioritize which gaps to fill first so that when you pitch something new, it has the highest chance of gaining links from the same sites as your competitors' top-performing pages.

Why Conduct a Content Gap Analysis?

We've already established that you can learn about your competitors by conducting a content gap analysis. Still, there are several other reasons it's worth doing for link building outreach.

Here are some other benefits of conducting this kind of research:

Find untapped opportunities

Remember, when you look at competitors' content and see what they are doing and what topics they aren't covering, you might spot missed opportunities. These untapped opportunities could be just the thing to help your content stand out from the crowd.

For example, keto meal plan guides have become increasingly popular in the 21st century as people prioritize healthy lifestyles. Given the popularity of specialty diets over the past decade, it is essential to find untapped content opportunities instead of blindly throwing time and money into creating content and hoping that just one piece will rank well on Google.

Avoid duplicating content

Many marketers produce similar content to their competitors without even realizing it. A content gap analysis reveals the topics already covered extensively by your rivals, so you can avoid repeating them and risk getting lost in the noise. Instead, you can focus on producing unique new pieces of valuable content that will stand out.

Conducting a content gap analysis means that you'll analyze what the competition is doing and create content based on the discovered data. Typically websites that accept guest post contributions have a strict no-plagiarism policy. Make sure you use a tool for plagiarism to double-check that you are avoiding duplicate content.

Find new ideas

A solid way to approach creating new content is by looking at what others have done successfully and building on that idea in an original way. Content gap analysis makes it easy to find successful ideas from other websites that can serve as inspiration for your new articles or blog posts, saving time on brainstorming sessions when coming up with ideas for your next piece of content.

Save time

By having all this great insight about what has worked well for your competitors in one place, you won't need to spend hours sifting through search results or individual sites trying to figure out what type of articles do best online.

How To Conduct a Content Gap Analysis

To get started with your content gap analysis for link building outreach, you'll need access to a few SEO tools: a rank tracker and a keyword explorer at the very least. Or you can use an all-in-one platform like Ranktracker.

These tools will provide valuable insight and ultimately tell you where the content gaps are—and, more importantly—where there might be gaps in their audience's knowledge.

(Image Source: Ranktracker)

Create a list of target sites for guest posts

Like conducting any other competitive analysis, the first step is finding a target guest post site and a few competitors. If you're not sure who that is yet, head over to Google, do some searches related to your specific topic, and see who appears in the search results.

For example, searching “how to learn French” on Google gives you a quick overview of the top websites for this specific keyword.

You now have the primary inputs for your content gap analysis and a robust list of websites for pitching guest posts.

Leverage SEO tools to identify content gaps

Once you have identified your complete list of sites, you'll want to find the best-performing pages. Look for specific keywords that your target guest post site isn't already covering.

The easiest way to do this is to segment them into a spreadsheet, then sort them by traffic volume potential, difficulty, and how deeply they relate to the site you're writing for.

For example, when checking the top pages for ServiceNow, one of Nlyte's competitors that ranks well for the “CMDB” keyword, you can see that "ITSM" is also a top keyword driving consistent traffic to ServiceNow's site.

(Image Source: Ahrefs)

However, "ITSM" is not a top-performing page or keyword for Nlyte. Ding ding, we have identified the content gap. When pitching a guest post to Nlyte, you should focus on the "ITSM" keyword. The more your topic and audience fit, the greater the chances of your success.

Send high-quality outreach emails

To get a guest piece published in a coveted publication, you'd better pitch it in a way that makes it stand out, or it'll be buried with the thousand others before you.

Most people submit guest posts to blogs and publishing sites with little or no research beforehand, as it's a more accessible and cheaper way to get published. Don't you want to earn a spot as a recurring columnist on a high authority blog?

You need to deliver quality content. Something that would be worthy of paying for. Now is the time to pitch the list of ideas based on your content gap analysis and explain how their competitors are ranking for these terms while they aren't. Pitch that your new piece will help them outrank the competition.

As a bonus, try to sweeten the deal by offering to promote the piece on social media or email lists.

The biggest payoff comes when your blog posts help a company save thousands of dollars in content writing, editing, and publishing while outranking their competition.

Wrapping Up

Link building is the key to better SERP rankings. Why? Because links are votes—the more authoritative websites that link to you, the more popular search engines like Google believe your site is.

Guest posts can be a great way to build links, but the process of finding sites, pitching them, and getting your content live is time-intensive. You can invest many resources in fruitless pitches and waste opportunities for guest posts without the right approach.

Finding good opportunities starts with a content gap analysis—identifying keyword gaps between your target guest post site and their competitors' sites based on organic search performance.

It will help you identify specific blog niches, understand the gaps in their content, and increase the probability of getting your new content published while scoring a coveted backlink.