Gated Content (2024)

FAQs

Gated Content? ›

Gated content is any type of content that prospects can only access after they've shared their contact information and other details (like their name, job title, and company).

Gated content requires a user to complete a form or purchase a subscription prior to gaining access to that section of content within a website. It's often used as a lead generation tool to help brand's gather helpful data about their prospects.

A gated content is a resource that's accessible after the visitor has shared their contact details. Creating gated efforts helps you build a database of quality leads, segment your audience, build trust and valuable relationships, and boost your lead generation efforts.

Some of the most typical examples include ebooks, white papers, and webinars. You could also gate podcasts, videos, expert guides, interviews, or anything else of value. When comparing gated and ungated content, ungated content is freely available while gated content is hidden behind a lead capture form.

While gated content is mainly used to generate leads, ungated content serves to increase brand awareness and improve search engine optimization (SEO).

Now, many marketing teams aren't seeing the same success they once did, reporting lower conversion rates and fewer leads from their gated content. Research backs up this trend: According to LinkedIn, only 25% of B2B buyers say they're willing to share personal details to access interesting content.

Gated content generates business leads, while non-gated content brings higher site traffic — but both have the potential to make a long-term impact on your business. A mix of gated and non-gated strategies gives you the best of both worlds. However, it requires an established following and a bigger team to pull it off.

Since content is behind a gate and no-indexed so readers can't bypass the gate, Google and other search engines can't see it either—meaning you won't see SEO benefits from that content.

Video Content. Video content is the most popular form of gated content. And with good reason — it's an effective way to share information and educate your audience. Video is a visual medium, so if you're trying to explain something, a video can often be more effective than text alone.

Gated content is online material that requires users to fill out a form to access the document. These forms typically ask for basic personal information, like name and email address. Gated content generally takes the form of white papers, guides, and product demos.

How to create gated content? ›

Use solid headings and straplines that get straight to the point and bullets for the other details. Solve problems by providing solutions. Your gated content needs to be the solution to your visitor's problem. Don't just tell them how you'll solve their issues but how much better life will be for them when you do.

Method #1: Incognito mode

For many sites, such as Medium, NYT, Washington Post, or HBR you can get around gating by using a private browsing window. You likely have an article open that has a paywall message. Copy the URL from the address bar. It's important to check if the URL has tracking information appended to it.

Ultimately, gated content is meant to generate leads that you can nurture into prospects through your marketing efforts, whereas ungated content is meant to increase traffic and improve trust with your audience. Both types of content are valuable and should be included in your content marketing strategy.

The SEO Considerations of Gated Content

It all depends on the kind of content and the kind of gate. If you use a content-blocking gate that prevents anyone from accessing the content until a form is filled out, then yeah, Google can't see the content either.

You can also create social media content promoting your gated content. While social media posts are typically a method for sharing ungated content, you can still share teasers, snippers, or highlights of your gated content to generate interest and direct users to your landing page.

Ungated content is content that is freely accessible to all users without any barriers or requirements to provide personal details.

Gated content tends to be used as a strategy for inbound lead generation, while ungated content is often used for inbound demand generation. Inbound lead generation – This puts the emphasis on using content as much as possible to generate leads, but without much consideration of your buyers' preferences.

So what is content gating? Well content gating is the process of putting up a paywall between the prospect and a valuable piece of content, only instead of cash, they must offer up their personal data in exchange. This usually includes basic contact information; name, email, phone number etc.