Gated content sits behind a form. A visitor sees a landing page describing the asset, fills in their details and then gets access to the ebook, report, template or recording. Gating is a lead generation tactic: it trades reach for contact information. The decision of what to gate is one of the recurring arguments in B2B content teams, and there is no answer that fits every company.
Trade-offs
Gating produces leads you can follow up with, which sales and marketing automation depend on. It also means fewer people see the content, search engines see only the landing page, and AI systems cannot cite what is behind the form.
- Gate: high-effort assets with clear value, where follow-up is relevant
- Ungate: educational content meant to build reach and search visibility
- Hybrid: an ungated summary page with the full asset gated
Search and gated content
Showing search engines the full content while hiding it from visitors behind a form can count as cloaking. Google has documented a way for paywalled and subscription content to be indexed using structured data that marks the restricted section. For most lead-gen gates, though, the simpler approach is a substantial, indexable landing page and the full asset behind the form.
Making gates fair
Ask for as little as you need, say what the visitor will receive and what follow-up to expect, and deliver the asset immediately. Respect consent rules that apply in your markets.
Example
Opening up some assets, gating others
Hypothetical company Quillmere gated all of its content and found most of its guides got little search traffic. It ungates its educational guides and keeps gating only its annual benchmark report and a set of advanced planning templates, each with a detailed summary page. Sales follow-up is focused on people who download those two assets.
Common mistakes
Gating everything
Basic educational content behind a form loses reach and frustrates readers looking for a quick answer.
Long forms
Asking for phone number, company size and budget for an ebook drives people away. Collect more later as the relationship develops.
Questions
Google can index what it can access. For lead-gen gates it typically sees only the landing page. For paywalled content, Google documents a structured data approach so it can understand the gated section.
