Keyword Gap Analysis: STEAL Your Competitors’ Best Keywords and Outrank Them

Ever wondered why your competitors’ content ranks higher than yours in search results, even when you’re covering similar topics?

The answer often lies in a process called keyword gap analysis—a strategic approach that reveals exactly which keywords your competitors are ranking for that you’re missing out on.

This analysis helps pinpoint missed opportunities in your SEO strategy, facilitating targeted content creation to boost organic search performance.

In this guide, we’ll explore:

• What is keyword gap analysis and why is it crucial for your SEO strategy?
• How can you systematically uncover your competitors’ best-performing keywords?
• What steps should you take to turn these insights into higher rankings and more organic traffic?

Let’s dive in.

What Is a Keyword Gap Analysis?

A keyword gap analysis compares your website’s keyword rankings with those of your competitors to identify relevant keywords they rank for that you don’t. This process also helps uncover keywords where they’re outperforming you, even if you both rank for the term.

Think of it as a competitive intelligence operation that reveals exactly where the opportunities lie in your SEO strategy.

Unlike traditional keyword research that starts with seed terms or brainstorming, keyword gap analysis focuses on proven opportunities—keywords that are already driving traffic to your competitors’ sites.

It’s essential for several reasons:

• Revealing new keyword opportunities.
• Enhancing competitive positioning.
• Refining content strategies to meet user intent.
• Increasing organic traffic and improving search visibility.
• Prioritizing content creation efforts based on real-world data.

Why Perform a Keyword Gap Analysis?

Conducting a keyword gap analysis offers several significant benefits for your SEO strategy:

1. Discover Missed Opportunities

You’ll identify valuable keywords your competitors are successfully targeting that you haven’t even considered. These represent immediate opportunities to expand your content strategy.

2. Improve Existing Content

By finding keywords where competitors outrank you, you can optimize your existing content to better target these terms and improve your positions.

3. Refine Your Content Strategy

Understanding the keyword landscape helps you make more informed decisions about which topics to prioritize in your content calendar.

4. Gain Competitive Intelligence

You’ll gain insights into your competitors’ SEO strategies, revealing their focus areas and potential strengths or weaknesses.

5. Boost Organic Traffic

By filling these keyword gaps with optimized content, you can capture traffic that’s currently going to your competitors.

How to Perform a Keyword Gap Analysis in 6 Steps

Overview:

First, gather all niche-specific competitors through manual Google searches, then input their URLs into a Google Sheet. Next, use an SEO tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to extract keywords these competitors rank for, and aggregate them into a master list in your spreadsheet. Deduplicate this list to ensure unique keywords, and then filter out irrelevant or overly competitive terms, focusing specifically on keywords below your target DR (Domain Rating) threshold. Finally, prioritize low-competition, high-opportunity keywords for content planning and topical clustering.

I did this whole strategy as the only method of keyword research for a brand new site and documented the process in this free ebook (on Gumroad). 

Let’s break down the process into six actionable steps you can implement right away:

Step 1: Select the Right Competitors for Analysis

Choosing the right competitors is crucial for an effective keyword gap analysis. You want to focus on businesses that truly compete with you in search results, not just in the marketplace.

How to find your true search competitors:

1. Manual search method: Begin by conducting Google searches using niche-specific queries such as:
   • “Best [your niche] for beginners”
   • “Top [your niche] tools”
   • “[Your niche] guide”
2. This approach helps you discover websites dedicated solely to your chosen niche, rather than general websites that occasionally cover your topic.
3. Selection criteria – Focus on competitors that meet these key qualities:
   • Niche focus: Prioritize websites that concentrate exclusively on your niche, avoiding generalist sites like Forbes or Mashable that have broader content coverage
   • Content quality: Assess the depth, relevance, and comprehensiveness of their content
4. Documentation: Create a competitor analysis spreadsheet listing:
   • Website URLs
   • Domain authority/rating
   • Primary monetization strategies
   • Content types they excel at
   • Unique features or selling points
5. Use SEO tools: Tools like Semrush or Ahrefs can identify domains that compete for the same keywords as you. In Semrush, enter your domain, navigate to the “Competitors” tab, and you’ll see a list of websites that compete for the same keywords as you in organic search.

Best practices for competitor selection:

• Choose 3-5 competitors
• Include at least one aspirational competitor (higher authority)
• Focus on websites that target the same audience and search intent
• Avoid including general publishers unless they’re direct competitors

For example, if you run a budgeting app, focus on other budgeting apps rather than financial news sites that might rank for similar terms but aren’t direct competitors.

Step 2: Identify Your Keyword Gaps

Once you’ve selected your competitors, it’s time to find the keyword gaps between your site and theirs. There are several effective tools for this purpose:

Analyzing Competitor Websites

Before diving into specific keywords, analyze each competitor’s website to understand their overall SEO strategy:

SEO metrics assessment: Utilize tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to gather data on each competitor, focusing on:

• Authority score: Indicates the overall quality and SEO performance
• Traffic volume: Provides insight into the site’s popularity and reach
• Traffic sources: Understand where their audience is coming from geographically
• Top-performing pages: Identify their most successful content

Content structure analysis:

• Topical clusters: Examine how content is organized—look for categories, tags, and internal linking structures
• Content depth: Assess the comprehensiveness of articles and their use of multimedia elements
• Content freshness: Note how frequently they update their content

Using Dedicated SEO Tools

Tools like Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool make this process straightforward:

1. Enter your domain and up to four competitor domains
2. Select your target location
3. Click “Compare”

The tool will generate a report showing:

• Keywords only your competitors rank for (“Missing” keywords)
• Keywords where competitors outrank you (“Weak” keywords)
• Keywords where you have an advantage (“Strong” keywords)
• Keywords with potential for improvement (“Untapped” keywords)

Focus first on the “Missing” and “Weak” tabs to identify your most significant opportunities.

Using Answer Socrates for Question-Based Keywords

AnswerSocrates.com is particularly useful for identifying question based keyword gaps:

1. Enter a seed keyword related to your niche
2. The tool will generate hundreds of questions people are actually searching for
3. Check which of these questions your competitors are addressing that you aren’t

This approach is especially effective for content gap analysis, as questions often reveal informational needs your content should address. However, it doesn’t compare against competitor domains, yet it’’s something you should be including in your keyword research. 

Step 3: Filter and Prioritize Keywords

After identifying keyword gaps, you’ll likely have hundreds or even thousands of potential keywords. The next step is to filter this list to focus on the most valuable opportunities.

Key metrics to consider when filtering keywords:

1. Search Volume: How many people search for this term monthly?
2. Keyword Difficulty: How hard will it be to rank for this keyword?
3. Business Relevance: How aligned is this keyword with your business goals?
4. Search Intent: Does the keyword match the type of content you create?
5. Competitor Performance: How many competitors rank for this term?

Prioritization strategy:

• High priority: Keywords with good search volume, low to medium difficulty, high business relevance
• Medium priority: Keywords with either high volume/high difficulty or low volume/low difficulty
• Low priority: Keywords with low volume, high difficulty, or limited business relevance

Using filters in SEO tools:

In Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool, you can apply filters to narrow down your results:

• Use the “KD” filter to focus on keywords with lower difficulty (e.g., 0-49)
• Use the “Volume” filter to set a minimum search volume threshold
• Use the “Position” filter to find keywords where competitors rank in the top 10

Save these filtered keywords to lists for easier management and implementation, here’s a guide on low-competition keywords. 

Step 4: Group Keywords into Clusters

Before creating content, organize your keywords into thematic clusters. This approach helps you:

• Create comprehensive content that targets multiple related keywords
• Build topical authority in your niche
• Avoid keyword cannibalization issues

How to cluster keywords effectively:

1. Keyword extraction:
   1. For each competitor, extract the complete list of keywords they rank for using your chosen SEO tool
   2. Compile these keywords into a master spreadsheet or database
   3. Record important metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, and current rankings
2. Data cleaning:
   1. Remove duplicate keywords to maintain a unique list
   2. Filter out irrelevant keywords that don’t align with your niche focus
   3. Eliminate branded terms unless they’re relevant to your business
3. Topical mapping:
   1. Group related keywords into clusters representing specific subtopics within your niche
   2. Identify parent topics (broader terms) and child topics (more specific terms)
   3. Map the relationship between different keyword clusters to visualize your content structure

Clustering methodology:

1. Group by search intent: Organize keywords based on whether they’re informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional.
2. Look for thematic relationships: Identify keywords that cover the same topic from different angles.
3. Check SERP similarity: Keywords that return similar search results should be grouped together.

For example, if you run a budgeting app, you might create clusters like:

• “Budgeting app features” (includes terms like “budgeting app that connects to bank,” “budgeting app with bill tracking”)
• “Free budgeting solutions” (includes terms like “best free budgeting app,” “no-cost money management tools”)
• “Budgeting for specific audiences” (includes terms like “budgeting app for couples,” “student budget planner”)

The best free tool for keyword clustering. I also wrote an entire guide on keyword clustering, and one on how to cluster keywords with ChatGPT.

Step 5: Create or Optimize Content Based on Your Findings

With your keyword gaps identified and organized, it’s time to create or optimize content. Your approach will depend on whether you’re targeting entirely new keywords or improving existing rankings.

Strategic content development:

1. Prioritization:
   • Low competition keywords: Focus initially on keywords with lower competition to establish authority
   • High traffic potential: Identify keywords that, despite low competition, have substantial search volumes
   • Commercial intent: Prioritize keywords that indicate purchase intent if monetization is a primary goal
2. Content creation strategy:
   • AI integration: Consider leveraging AI tools for drafting content, ensuring to add human edits for quality and authenticity
   • Content depth: Create comprehensive resources that cover topics more thoroughly than competitors
   • Content freshness: Include the most up-to-date information, statistics, and examples
   • Multimedia elements: Incorporate images, videos, infographics, and interactive elements to enhance engagement
3. Site structure optimization:
   • Navigation: Design intuitive menus and category pages reflecting your topical clusters
   • Internal linking: Establish strategic links between related articles within the same cluster
   • Supplementary pages: Include essential pages like About Us, Contact, Privacy Policy, and relevant disclaimers

For new keyword opportunities:

1. Create comprehensive content: Develop in-depth content that thoroughly addresses the topic, incorporating your target keywords naturally.
2. Follow on-page SEO best practices:
   • Include keywords in the title, headings, and throughout the content
   • Craft compelling meta descriptions
   • Use semantic variations of your keywords
   • Structure content with clear headings and subheadings
   • Include relevant images and multimedia elements
3. Address search intent: Ensure your content aligns with what users are actually looking for when they search for these terms.

For improving existing content:

1. Identify underperforming pages: Find content that ranks on page 2 or lower for target keywords.
2. Conduct a content audit: Analyze what’s missing from your existing content compared to competitors’.
3. Update and expand: Add missing information, update statistics, improve readability, and incorporate additional keywords.
4. Enhance internal linking: Connect your updated content to other relevant pages on your site (here are some tools that can help).

Step 6: Monitor Results and Refine Your Strategy

Keyword gap analysis isn’t a one-time task—it’s an ongoing process that requires monitoring and refinement.

Key metrics to track:

1. Keyword rankings: Are your positions improving for the target keywords?
2. Organic traffic: Is your content attracting more visitors?
3. Engagement metrics: Are users engaging with your content (time on page, bounce rate)?
4. Conversions: Is the new content driving meaningful business results?

Tools for tracking performance:

• Google Search Console provides data on rankings, impressions, clicks, and CTR
• Google Analytics offers insights into traffic, engagement, and conversion metrics
• Rank tracking tools allow you to monitor specific keyword positions over time

Continuous improvement strategy:

1. Regular competitor analysis: Repeat your keyword gap analysis quarterly to identify new opportunities.
2. Content refreshes: Update your best-performing content regularly to maintain and improve rankings.
3. Expand successful topics: When content performs well for certain keywords, consider creating related content to build topical authority.

Common Keyword Gap Analysis Mistakes to Avoid

As you implement your keyword gap strategy, watch out for these common pitfalls:

1. Targeting Only High-Volume Keywords

While high-volume keywords are attractive, they’re often more competitive. Balance your strategy with a mix of high-volume and long-tail keywords.

2. Ignoring Search Intent

Even if a keyword has high volume, it won’t drive conversions if the intent doesn’t match your content. Always prioritize alignment with search intent.

3. Copying Competitor Content

Finding keyword gaps isn’t permission to copy competitors’ content. Your goal should be to create something better and more comprehensive.

4. Neglecting On-Page Optimization

Creating content for gap keywords isn’t enough—you need to properly optimize it with technical SEO best practices.

5. Failing to Update Existing Content

Sometimes, the best strategy isn’t creating new content but updating what you already have. Don’t overlook the power of content refreshes.

Keyword Gap Analysis vs Content Gap Analysis

While related, keyword gap analysis and content gap analysis serve different purposes:

Keyword Gap Analysis:

• Focus: Specific keywords and phrases
• Primary goal: Identify ranking opportunities
• Typical outcome: List of keywords to target
• Main benefit: Improved search visibility

Content Gap Analysis:

• Focus: Topic coverage and customer journey
• Primary goal: Identify missing content types or topics
• Typical outcome: Content ideas that may or may not be keyword-driven
• Main benefit: More comprehensive content strategy

The best approach is to use both methodologies together. Use keyword gap analysis to identify specific terms to target, and content gap analysis to ensure you’re addressing all stages of the customer journey.

Case Study: Jake Ward’s “SEO Heist”

Jake Ward, a tech entrepreneur and SEO agency founder, became known in the SEO industry for what he called an “SEO heist” – a controversial experiment that demonstrates both the power and potential pitfalls of aggressive competitor keyword analysis.

The Strategy

Ward’s approach took competitor analysis to an extreme level:

1. He downloaded a competitor’s sitemap (essentially a list of all their web pages)
2. Converted each URL into a blog title
3. Used AI tools to rapidly generate 1,800 articles based on those titles, targeting the same keywords

The Results

Initially, the strategy showed impressive numbers:

• Diverted 3.6 million visits over 18 months
• Reached nearly half a million monthly sessions at its peak
• Successfully captured traffic from established competitors

What Happened Next

However, the success was short-lived:

• After Ward publicly shared his tactics, Google’s did a manual action
• The site’s organic traffic dropped by 42%
• The affected sites saw their growth revert to pre-heist levels or worse
• Little lasting business benefit remained

The takeaway? Keyword gap analysis is a normal SEO method at capturing traffic. It works! However, Google doesn’t like mass produced AI content, and when you publicly share online with controversial wording “heist, stole, etc” people get pissed! Which leads to Google taking notice and giving a manual action (not algorithmically) to take away the traffic.

Conclusion

Keyword gap analysis is one of the most effective strategies for increasing your traffic, and gaining an edge over competitors. By systematically identifying keywords your competitors rank for that you don’t, you can uncover valuable opportunities to expand your content strategy and capture more organic traffic.

Remember that successful keyword gap analysis is about more than just finding keywords—it’s about understanding what your audience is searching for and creating better content to meet those needs.

Follow the six-step process outlined in this guide:

1. Select the right competitors
2. Identify keyword gaps
3. Filter and prioritize keywords
4. Group keywords into clusters
5. Create or optimize content
6. Monitor results and refine your strategy

With consistent application of this approach, you’ll be well on your way to closing your keyword gaps and outranking your competitors in search results.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I perform a keyword gap analysis?

For most websites, conducting a keyword gap analysis quarterly is ideal. However, in fast-moving industries, you might want to do it more frequently (monthly or bi-monthly) to stay ahead of changing trends and competitor strategies.

What tools do I need for effective keyword gap analysis?

While paid SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz make the process much easier, you can perform a basic free kw research using tools like Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner, and Answer Socrates.

How many competitors should I analyze?

Focus on 3-5 direct competitors for the most relevant results. Including too many competitors can lead to an overwhelming number of keywords that aren’t closely aligned with your business goals.

Should I prioritize keywords by search volume or difficulty?

Neither metric should be considered in isolation. The ideal approach is to balance search volume, keyword difficulty, and business relevance. Look for keywords with a good volume-to-difficulty ratio that closely align with your products or services.

What’s the difference between “missing” and “weak” keywords?

“Missing” keywords are terms that your competitors rank for but your site doesn’t appear in the top 100 results. “Weak” keywords are terms where you rank, but competitors have significantly better positions. Both represent opportunities, but they require different approaches—creating new content for missing keywords versus optimizing existing content for weak ones.