[Build Backlinks Online] Content-Gap SEO: A Potentially Untapped Opportunity

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Content-Gap SEO: A Potentially
Untapped Opportunity'

Posted by randfish
NOTE:This post is mostlytheoretical, but I hope potentially helpful and worthy
of discussion.
Over the last few years, and particularly since the advent of Hummingbird, I've
noticed Google becoming more nuanced about the content it ranks, evenfor queries
where they don'thave lots of data on what users click, what they engage with,
what they ignore, and their behavioral habits around a search (related searches,
usage patterns before/after the query, etc.).
My theory is that this new intelligence presents a dramatic opportunity for
marketers and content creators who can identify the patterns and spot queries
where critical questions may lie unanswered.
Historically, much of what we'd see from Google's rankings could be explained
through a few big factors:Links Domain Authority Keyword
Matching Relevance Freshness (and, certainly during Google's partnership with
Twitter, social signals)
We know Google's become more complex, but even from 2010-2012, I'd say the vast
majorityof searches' rank orderingcould be explained with elements contained in
these broad categories.
Today, I'm observing a lot of rankings that seem to connect with brand signals,
user/usage data, and a far more nuanced consideration of links, authority, and
relevance, but perhaps most uniquely, and especially in queries that have
information-gathering intent, there seems to be a set of ranking signals related
to what I'll call "relevance to alternativesearcher intents."
I'll try to illustrate this with an example. Here's a query for "
space pen" in Google US (non-personalized with geo-biasing removed):
There's three potential popular "intents" that searchers have around this
query.Those seeking Fisher's branded Space Pen Those seeking to learn about the
oft-repeated myth around the supposedly costly development of the Space Pen by
NASA when Russian cosmonauts used pencils Those seeking the Spacepen framework
for Coffeescript
And Google's done a nice job recognizing those unique intents and populating
the SERPs appropriately with results to answer all three. Historically I'd have
called this "QDD" or "Query Deserves Diversity" (something I
first wrote about way back in 2008).
But actually, I think we've seen an evolution from the raw "diversity" inputs
(which, in my opinion, mostly revolved around combinations of click behavior in
the SERPs and search modification behavior, i.e. people searching for "space
pen" then refining to search for "space pen coffeescript") to a model that has
more sophistication.
That more sophisticated model might be better illustrated with this query for "
most flavorful steak" (also Google US, non-personalized, non-geo-biased):

There are multiple intents around this query, but they're far more subtle than
those for "Space Pen." Searchers are likely seeking things like a description of
the various types of cuts, information about what makes a steak taste better,
perhaps some interesting types of steaks they haven't heard of previously or why
certain cuts are more expensive than others.
What's remarkable is how Google has made shifts in queries like this in the
last couple years. If I performed this query in 2012 (which I'm fairly sure
Idid, but sadly didn't screenshot), I would have seen a lot more
keyword-matching and a much more singular focus on articles that specifically
mentioned "flavorful" (or fairly direct synonyms thereof) in the title and
headline. Actually, it would look a lot more like
Bing's results (no offense to them; these results are actually quite good, too,
just far more keyword match-focused):

Today, from Google, I'm getting a broader interpretation of the true intent(s)
behind the use of the adjective, "flavorful."
There's results that touch on expensive cuts of steak, of types of beef itself
(like Wagyu & Kobe), on what makes a steak more flavorful, and there's a
siteshowing up (Niman Ranch) that seems totally out of place when you look at
the link numbers, but makes a lot of sense as a highly co-cited brand name. For
reference, here's a
basic keyword difficulty report for the phrase:

My opinion (and this is pure, unvarnished, speculation) is that Google's using
inputs like:Relationships between words, phrases, concepts, and entities to get
closer to an understanding of language and an evaluation of the content quality
itself Patterns detected in how authoritative pieces write about/mention the
keywords User and usage data signals that look at multiple sessions, multiple
queries, and identify patterns of searcher satisfaction (possibly using machine
learning) Topic modeling that tries to identify terms and phrases that are
associated with diversity of opinion and topical focus so there's an element of
finding not just useful information, but potentially new and interesting
information, too
I don't believe these are overwhelming signals today. Links are still very
powerful. Domain authority is still clearly influential. But for a lot of what
I'm seeing in the end of the chunky middle and into the long tail of the keyword
demand curve, I think there's an opportunity for marketers to perform some
content gap analysis and win rankings without needing the quantities of links &
authority otherwise required.
Here's my strawman concept for starting out with some Content-Gap SEO(and
hopefully y'all can rip into and improve upon itin the comments):
Step One: Identify the keywords you're targeting that fit in the backside of
the chunky middle and long tail.
Step Two: Prioritize your list based on the terms/phrases you believe will be
most valuable (and remember that doesn't always mean highest search volume).
Step Three: Starting from the top, write down 4-6 types ofintent and/or pieces
of unique informationthat you believe searchers might have/wantwhen performing
eachquery.
Step Four: Perform the query in Google, and look through the top 10. Do you see
results that answer all of the intent/info types you wrote down? Write down how
many are missing (including 0 if everything's already fulfilled).
Step Five: Use your number as a potential prioritizer for the creation of new
content or the modification/addition of content to existing pages. Then watch
and see if Google feels the same way and begins rewarding you for this.
While this process is speculative and my theories are, too, I will say that I
have talked to and emailed with a lot of folks in the SEO field of late who've
talked over and over about the surprise they've had from purely content-based
rankings and rankings improvements. I might be wrong about a lot of the details,
but I'd be willing to bet that there's something new going on in how Google
analyzes and rewards pages that provide the right kind of content.
For marketers who can identify the patterns, find the content gaps, and fulfill
them, I believe there's opportunity to rank without having to pound nearly the
same levels ofexternallinks at yourpages.
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