TL;DR: A competitor keyword gap analysis compares the keywords your site ranks for with those of a few genuine competitors, to find search terms they rank for and you don’t. Tools such as Semrush’s Keyword Gap and Ahrefs’ Content Gap build the comparison for you, but the real work is deciding which gaps are worth chasing: whether you can realistically compete for them, and which page would suit what searchers want.
Competitor keywords are the search terms your competitors already rank for in Google. Some overlap with yours. The gaps are the ones they rank for, and your site does not. A competitor keyword gap analysis finds those gaps and helps you decide which ones deserve a place on your website.
It is worth doing because it replaces guesswork with evidence. Instead of choosing topics on instinct, you start with search terms competitors already rank for in your market, making a content plan easier to justify and prioritise.
Here are the five steps, from choosing competitors through to mapping what you find onto your site.
Step 1: Identify the Right Competitors
Start with who you actually compete with online, which is not always who you compete with on the high street or in a pitch. The comparison only works if the sites you choose are going after the same audience and search terms as you.
If you are not sure who that is, search Google for the terms your customers would use to find you and see who ranks. As a made-up example, a Sheffield accountancy practice might search “accounting services Sheffield” and find that the sites in the top results are not the firms it would have named. Those sites are the ones worth comparing against. Our guide to competitor research covers direct and indirect competitors in more detail.
The most common mistake is only picking the competitor you lose sales to, rather than the sites you lose searches to. For a telecoms training client, their best-known rival was the obvious choice, but the generic searches for UK courses were dominated by course marketplaces and thin question-and-answer sites they’d never have thought to check, which is exactly where the easiest gaps were. – Kezia Humphries, SEO Account Manager
Step 2: Set Up the Comparison
Before you run anything, decide which country or search market you are comparing in, and which competitors to include. Semrush asks you to choose a regional database, so pick the one that matches where your customers search.
It also helps to know what a “gap” means in the tool. In Semrush, a site counts as ranking organically for a keyword if it appears in the top 100 Google results for the database you choose, so a keyword where you rank at, say, position 80 won’t appear as a gap. Check the Weak group too: keywords where you rank, but below all your competitors. How many keywords a Semrush report returns depends on your subscription level, and what you can export depends on the size of the report, so check yours before you rely on a large export.
Step 3: Pinpoint the Keyword Gaps
This is the core of the exercise: working out which of your competitors’ keywords you do not rank for. You can do it by hand, by exporting each competitor’s keyword list and cross-referencing it against your own in a spreadsheet, but that gets slow and error-prone once you have more than one or two competitors.
Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool does the comparison for you. Enter your domain alongside your competitors’ domains, and it shows a side-by-side table of rankings, with the keywords grouped. Two groups matter most here. Missing is keywords where all of your competitors rank, and you do not. Untapped is wider: keywords where you do not rank but a competitor does. Missing is a sensible place to start, because every competitor you entered covers those terms, but that makes it a good first look, not proof a keyword is worth chasing.
Ahrefs’ Content Gap works along similar lines: it lists keywords the competitor sites you enter rank for that your site does not. In both tools, you can hover over a competitor’s position to see the page that ranks, which you will need in Step 4.
You will usually end up with more gaps than you can act on, which is what the next steps are for.
Top Tip: Before you add a gap to your content plan, search the keyword yourself and look at who is on page one. If the results are dominated by sites far bigger than yours, such as national brands, marketplaces or directories, it is rarely a realistic gap to close. A smaller competitor ranking well for it is a much better sign that you can compete.
Step 4: Check How They Are Targeting Each Keyword
Once you have a shortlist, open the page your competitor ranks with for each keyword. This shows you what Google currently returns for that search term. Look at:
- What type of page it is: a blog post, a service page, a product page.
- How the keyword is used in the title tag and H1.
- How much real content is on the page, and how it is structured.
- What internal and external links it includes.
- Whether it includes anything that builds trust, such as reviews, credentials or real examples.
You are looking for what your own page would need to match or beat, not proof of why theirs ranks. No single item on this list explains a ranking, so treat it as a comparison of what is there rather than a recipe.
Step 5: Map the Gaps to Your Website
The type of page that ranks is also a useful clue to search intent, which is what the person searching actually wants. If a keyword mostly returns blog posts and guides, people probably want information. If it returns service or product pages, they are probably closer to buying or enquiring. Writing a blog post for a keyword where searchers want a service page, or the reverse, means your page may never match what people are looking for.
Then decide where each keyword goes: an existing page to update, or a new page. Check your existing pages first, because creating a second page for a topic you already cover can lead to keyword cannibalisation, where your own pages compete with each other. Our guide to what causes keyword cannibalisation explains how to spot it.
A simple spreadsheet is enough to keep track. For each keyword, record the competitor page that ranks, the search intent, the page on your site it belongs to (existing or new) and your decision. For help judging which keywords are realistic to go after, see our guide to which keywords are best to target.
For one building consultancy client, we compared their website with three competitors we had found ranking in Google for their main services. The comparison turned up more than 230 relevant keywords that the competitors ranked for, and our client didn’t. We then mapped each keyword to the type of page that suited it: “level 3 building survey” went to a service page, and “surveyors in Birmingham” went to a location page. That gave us a prioritised list of pages to optimise, instead of a long list of keywords with nowhere to go. We effectively reworked content accordingly, optimising those landing pages with missing keywords mapped to them. – Andrew Blanchard, SEO Account Manager
Is a Keyword Gap Analysis the Same as a Competitor Analysis?
No. A full competitor analysis looks at a much wider picture: content, backlinks, branding, conversion rates, target audience, social media and email marketing. A keyword gap analysis is narrower and only looks at search terms your competitors rank for, and you do not. The two work well together. A wider competitor analysis tells you who you are up against, while a keyword gap analysis gives you a specific list of search terms to consider.
How Many Competitors Should I Compare?
There is no set number. Comparing against a single competitor risks copying one site’s blind spots along with its strengths, while a long list can produce so many overlapping gaps that prioritising them gets harder. A short list of the sites you most often see alongside you in the results is a good place to start. If you compete with a wider field, run the comparison in smaller batches and combine the results afterwards.
How Wildcat Can Help With Keyword Gap Analysis
The tools produce long lists. The judgement is in choosing competitors who genuinely overlap with you in search, reading what the ranking pages are doing, and deciding which page each keyword belongs on. Our SEO team can help recommend keywords that suit your website.
What we need from you is a picture of your business, your website and your goals, which is what the free consultation call covers. If you want to take it further, we put together a tailored proposal with prices. To start, book a free consultation with our team.
Molly Sturgeon
Senior SEO Account Manager
