Sizing the Gap: Volume * Winnability * Value

Full transcript

1,035 words · script draft, under review.

Intro

You now have four lists. Keywords you're missing. Page types you don't have. Pages buried too deep. And a note on where authority blocks you.

Together, dozens of possible actions. They're not equally worth doing. A big search volume you can't win is worth less than a small one you can.

In this episode, we size every gap with one simple formula: volume, times winnability, times value. And we make sure the score doesn't pretend to be more precise than it is.

The formula and where each part comes from

Here's the formula. Expected clicks, times value per click, times winnability.

Expected clicks is volume times click-through rate. Volume comes from the demand episodes. One number per synonym group, never summed, in the right singular or plural form. For a page type, it's the sum of the clusters that page type would cover, from episodes twenty-four and forty. Those are different searches, so here summing is fine.

The click-through rate comes from your own CTR curve from episode eleven. And here's the first honesty rule: use the CTR for a realistic position, not for position one. If the SERP says you might reach position five, use your position-five CTR.

Value per click comes from episode twenty-two. CPC is a proxy, not revenue. So I call the result "value points", not dollars. It's for ranking gaps against each other, not for a forecast.

Winnability is a factor between zero and one. It comes from your own difficulty estimate in episode thirty-one, the weak-SERP signals from episode thirty-two, and the authority check from the last episode.

Finally, I divide by a fixed reference, the biggest single item I'd realistically expect on this site. Here, two hundred and fifty value points. That puts every score between zero and one, and keeps scores comparable when I rerun next quarter.

One thing is not in the formula: the gates from episode thirty-five. If a gap fails a gate, it doesn't get a score. It gets dropped.

Worked example: seven gaps

Here are seven gaps from our coffee equipment shop. Made-up numbers for illustration. I'll walk through three, and the table shows the rest.

Item C is the comparison pages from episode forty, one per pair of popular products. The clusters they'd cover add up to six thousand searches a month. Realistic target: position five, where our own CTR is about six percent. That's three hundred and sixty clicks, at eighty cents of value each. Winnability: point seven, because two core competitors rank with this page type, and their pages have few links. Score: point eight one. The highest on the list.

Item A: rewrite the titles on four category pages stuck on page two. Here's the second honesty rule. For pages that already rank, count only the extra clicks. Together they see four thousand searches. Today they get about sixty clicks. Moving up a few positions might give a hundred and forty. So the gain is eighty clicks, at a dollar fifty. Winnability: point seven. Score: point three four.

Item F looks like the winner on paper: thirty blog posts on broad head terms, forty thousand searches a month. But in episode twenty-five we broke those terms down, and almost none of it is buying intent. Value per click: about ten cents. Score: point one six. The biggest volume, near the bottom.

The rest: the size calculator, D, scores point six three. The hub links to our twelve buried buying guides, B, point four five. The cannibalization fix, E, point three three. And the link campaign, G, we can barely put inputs on. The authority check said links aren't our blocker, so it gets a low score with a very wide range.

Sensitivity: which inputs can flip the order?

Every input here is an estimate. So before you trust the order, test it. That's called a sensitivity check: change one uncertain input to a plausible other value, and see if the ranking changes.

Take item C. Winnability point seven is a judgement. Drop it to point six, and C scores about point six nine. Lower its CTR from six to five percent instead, and it's about point six seven. Either way, it's still on top. That's a robust first place.

Now look at A and E. Point three four and point three three. Change almost anything, and they swap. So the honest conclusion isn't "A before E". It's: A and E are tied. Something other than the score has to decide between them.

And F? Even if I double its value per click, it only reaches about point three. Still not a contender. That's robust too, at the bottom.

My rule: change the two or three least certain inputs, one at a time. If an item stays near its place through all of them, the order is real. If it moves, call it a tie. That tells you where you're confident, and where more evidence would help.

Avoid fake precision

The formula will happily give you four decimals. Point eight zero six four. Don't show them. Every input was rounded, estimated or borrowed, so the output can't be more precise than the roughest input.

Three habits help. Round every score to two decimals at most. Show a low and a high value next to each score, from your sensitivity check. And when you present the list, use bands: high, medium, low. People argue about point three three against point three four. Nobody argues about two items both being medium.

In our example, C and D are high. B, A and E are medium. F and G are low.

And keep the inputs visible. A score without its inputs can't be challenged. A score with its inputs can be fixed when someone knows better.

The output: a sized gap list

What you get is one list, across all four gap types, with a score, a range and a band for every item. The inputs sit right next to the score.

What it doesn't include yet is effort. A gap that scores high but takes three months to build might still wait behind a medium one that takes an afternoon. That's the next step.

Wrap-up

Volume times winnability times value, with honest rounding and a sensitivity check. The sizing spreadsheet is linked in the description. Next episode: the prioritization framework, effort against impact, and what to build first. See you there.