Websites are like trees. They need constant care and attention to grow strong and healthy. Like a tree, your website needs regular pruning and monitoring to stay healthy. If you’re lucky, your website will be able to stand on its own without much input from you after it’s built.
Content gaps are sections of your website that require more information, or content to complete the picture. While they might appear as small details at first glance, these content gaps can have a major impact on how people view your website.
After all, what kind of first impression do empty spaces give people? If you detect any content gaps in your website, you should address them as soon as possible so that visitors get the most out of your site. The following tips will help you identify content gaps in your site and take action to fix them.
What Is Content Gap?
A content gap is an empty area on your website where more content is needed. Content gaps happen for a variety of reasons, such as skimming off your research list or not following industry best practices for your website’s topic.
Fortunately, content gaps can be identified and addressed before they impact your conversion rate. A content gap is when there is an area on your website where you haven’t put any information, or you have put a placeholder or little information that isn’t enough to satisfy the needs of your visitors.
Content gaps happen when you don’t have enough time or resources to create everything that you want to put on your website.
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Why Have Content Gaps?
There are several reasons why you might have content gaps. Perhaps you didn’t have enough time to write everything before your website went live. Or perhaps you just wanted to post your website as soon as possible, so you prioritized getting it online over filling all the content gaps.
Another reason you might have content gaps is because you’re not sure how to go about writing your content. You might feel unqualified to write in-depth articles on a given topic, or you might just not know where to start. If any of these scenarios describe you, then don’t worry!
You can easily fix content gaps and make sure that your website is as helpful as possible to visitors by following the tips in this article.
What Are the Most Common Content Gaps?
- Broken Links – If you’ve ever clicked a link on a website only to find that it doesn’t take you anywhere, then you’ve experienced the frustration of broken links. While these broken links might be a result of faulty code, they might also be an indication of larger issues within the website’s content.
- Not enough information – If your content covers the main points about your business or product, but has little to no details about what it does, then you might be missing out on bringing in new leads. If a visitor isn’t sure what your service does, then they aren’t likely to convert on your website.
- Unnecessary content – It’s important to remember that your website is a public space that anyone can visit. You don’t want to put up content that is irrelevant to your industry or product. If you put up content that isn’t helpful to your site visitors, then they’re not likely to stick around long enough to become customers.
- Duplicate content – If you have multiple pages that are basically the same thing with only minor alterations, then you have duplicate content. This can result in your website being penalized by search engines, as well as customers not trusting your business.
Create a Plan to Fill Each Content Gap
Now that you’ve identified your content gaps, it’s time to come up with a plan to fill them. To do this, you’ll need to know what caused each content gap and what you can do to fix it. To fix this, you’ll need to research your website for outdated information and then update it to the latest and most accurate content.
Broken links – If you’re dealing with broken links, it’s likely that your content is out of date.
Not enough information – If you have content gaps because you don’t have enough information to write a sufficient amount of content, then you’ll need to do more research. You can do this by interviewing your staff, customers, and competitors, or by doing research on industry-related websites.
Unnecessary content – If you’ve put up content that isn’t related to your industry or product, then you might have a content gap. To fix this, you’ll need to thoroughly read through your content and remove any that is unnecessary.
Duplicate content – If you have duplicate content, you’ll need to decide which content you’ll keep and which you’ll remove. You can do this by reading each of your duplicate articles and seeing which one is the most helpful.
Ask Your Audience Again
By this point, you’ve done the research that led to the content gaps in the first place. Now, you can use that research to ask your audience again what they want to see on your website. This will give you a chance to fill in any remaining content gaps with topics that your audience wants to see.
If you have a large number of content gaps, you might not want to take on all of them at once. Instead, you can break them up into smaller chunks, such as a few per week. This will help you to get everything done without feeling overwhelmed.
Check for Broken Links
Broken links can cause confusion and frustration for your visitors, but they can also hurt your website’s SEO. It’s easy to fix broken links, so definitely do so before you move on to checking for duplicate content. To find broken links on your website, use a broken link checker. You can also use an editing software to find broken links and then fix them.
Check for Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is when you have multiple pieces of content with very similar information. Usually, this occurs when you’ve got a couple of articles that go into great detail about one topic, but you’ve added one article to several different pages.
You can check for duplicate content with a duplicate content checker, or you can use an editing software. If you find duplicate content on your website, you’ll want to decide whether to keep the content or get rid of it. If the content is useful, you can keep it on one page and then remove it from the other pages. If the content isn’t helpful, though, you should remove it from all pages.
Check Your Seo Strategy
While many of the tips in this article can help you fill content gaps, a few of them can also impact your SEO. Luckily, you can do a couple of things to make sure your SEO is still on track.
If you’ve added new content since the last time you checked your SEO strategy, you’ll want to recheck it by reading SEO guidelines. If you’ve made significant changes to your website, such as adding a new product or service, you’ll also want to consider doing an SEO refresh. An SEO refresh is when you update your SEO strategy to reflect new content on your website.
An SEO refresh is often necessary when you’ve made significant changes to your website, such as adding a new product or service. If you’ve made smaller changes, such as adding new content or correcting broken links, you might not need to do an SEO refresh.
Define the Problem
Before you can start filling in your content gaps, you need to understand exactly what the problem is. For example, if you discover that your website has too little information about your product’s features, then you need to know why that’s the case.
One way to do this is by writing down the problems you think your website has. Once you’ve written down a few problems, you can start to look at them from different angles, and this will help you understand the problems more fully.
Define the Purpose of Each Content Gap
Once you’ve identified the problem, you can start to think about the purpose of each content gap.
Fixing Content Gaps
You’ll be able to plug the gaps in your website by using the following strategies:
- Hire a Copywriter – Copywriting is the art of bringing together elements that engage your readers, such as headlines, subheads, and bite-sized paragraphs. With a good copywriter on your team, you’ll be able to fix low-quality paragraphs that lack engagement, and add missing content to target specific audiences.
- Expand on Your Website’s Mission – Your website’s mission statement is often the starting point for content. It’s a place where you can explain what your business does, what customers can expect, and why they should choose you over your competitors. If you’re short on words, you could try writing a mission statement from scratch. Alternatively, you could also expand on your existing mission statement to make it more comprehensive.
- Add More Types of Content – The types of content you choose for your website will depend on your industry and your business goals. The best types of content for your website depend on your business goals and what your target audience wants. You could choose from a range of different types of content.
- Start Publishing Content – This might seem obvious, but if you don’t have any content on your website, how can you expect anyone to stick around? Start publishing blog posts and articles to target your core audience and generate leads.
Gap Analysis
Gap analysis is a strategy that will help you identify the gaps in your website and close them. Break down your website and look at all the sections that need more content. For example, you might want to review your home page and see what sections could use more content. You might also want to consider reviewing your blog posts and other pieces of content to see if any sections require more information.
If so, you might want to ask yourself these questions: What information is missing from each section? Why is it missing? What are the consequences of these gaps?
You should consider filling the gaps on your website based on their importance. You might want to focus on the gap that has the biggest impact. Once you’ve identified the gaps, you can start brainstorming ways to fill them.
How to Detect Content Gaps
Begin by auditing your website and checking for content gaps. Here are some strategies you can use to detect content gaps:
- Look at Your Website’s Performance – This might sound a bit confusing, but you have to look at your data and statistics. Identify the pages that have low engagement and weak calls-to-action. Then, find out what content is missing on these pages and why visitors are leaving.
- Ask Your Audience – You can also ask your customers what content you should be adding to your website. You can do this through surveys and polls, or by using customer service software. You can also collect customer feedback on your website.
- Inspect Your Website – Finally, you can inspect your website for content gaps. You can’t just wing this, so be sure to follow these tips: Start by looking at your website objectively.
What do you see? What content is missing and where is it missing? What type of content is missing? If you’re struggling to answer these questions, you can use an audit check list to guide you.
Identify the Cause of Each Content Gap
Once you’ve identified the gaps in your website, you’ll want to identify the cause of each content gap. You can do this by asking yourself a few questions: Why do I need more content in this section? What information is missing? What action should be taken to fix this content gap?
For instance, if you notice a content gap in your about page, you should ask yourself why this gap exists in the first place. Is it because you don’t have the time or resources to expand on the content? Or maybe you don’t know what information to write.
It’s important to identify the cause of each content gap so that you can take the appropriate action to fix it. If you don’t know what to write, for example, you can outsource the content or hire a writer to create the content for you.
Record User Behavior
If you’ve identified that a section of your website is constantly underperforming, you might want to record user behavior. You can do this by creating surveys and polls that ask your visitors why they aren’t engaging with your content.
You can also use tools such as Google Analytics to monitor your visitors’ behavior. This will allow you to see how long your visitors are spending on your page, what they’re clicking on, and more. If you notice that visitors aren’t clicking on a certain section of your page, you can use this data to identify what content needs to be added.
Run a User Experience Audit
Finally, you can run a user experience audit of your website. This will allow you to identify what your website lacks and what content needs to be added. You can use tools such as UX review, UsabilityHub, and Usertesting.com to run a user experience audit.
Begin by creating a list of the content your website is missing and where it’s missing from. You can also use mind mapping software to get your thoughts organized. Once you’ve created a list of content that needs to be added, you can use this data to create a website map.
You can also use the website map to create a content flow diagram that shows where each piece of content should be placed on your website.
Conclusion
Your website is an extension of your business and an opportunity to create a lasting impression on your customers. However, if your website has a few content gaps, it can put a dent in your business. To avoid this, you need to regularly check your site and catch any content gaps before they become a problem. By following these tips, you can identify content gaps, determine the cause, and take action to plug the gap before it becomes a major issue.