Keyword gap analysis: find the keywords you're missing
·4 min read
A keyword gap analysis compares the Google keywords a competitor ranks for with the ones your site ranks for, and lists the difference. The keyword gap that matters most is the "missing" set, the searches where the competitor gets visits and you have no page at all. Filter that list by intent fit, difficulty and whether you already cover the topic, and what's left is your next quarter of content briefs.
What the keyword gap sets mean
Most gap reports split keywords into four sets. The names vary by tool, but the logic is the same.
| Set | Competitor ranks | You rank | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Missing | Yes | No | Topics you have no page for |
| Weak | Yes, higher | Yes, lower | Pages you have that lose |
| Shared | Yes | Yes, similar or higher | Ground you already hold |
| Unique | No | Yes | Your edge, worth protecting |
Missing keywords are new pages. Weak keywords are rewrites. Keep the two lists apart. A writer briefs a missing keyword. An editor fixes a weak one by improving the page you already have.
Shared and unique sets are context, not tasks. A big shared set means the competitor is a true search rival. A competitor with almost no shared keywords is probably a sales competitor that ranks for different things, and its gap list will be full of topics your buyers never search.
How to run a content gap analysis
Pick the right rival first, then compare one pair at a time.
- Choose a search competitor. Use the site that keeps outranking you for your money keywords, not the company your sales team loses deals to. Finding your real search competitors covers how.
- Fix the market. Compare in the country where you sell. A UK gap list run against US data is noise.
- Pull the missing keywords. Keep only those where the competitor ranks in the top 20. Below that it gets almost no visits, so the keyword proves little.
- Drop brand searches. You will never win "hubspot login" from HubSpot.
- Group by the competitor URL that ranks. Ten keywords landing on one competitor page are one brief, not ten.
For the weak set, start from your own Search Console queries rather than a third-party tool. Those positions are measured. A gap tool's rankings are estimates. The competitor keywords post covers reading a rival's full ranking list, including keywords you share.
How to prioritize keyword gaps
Score each missing keyword on three questions, in this order.
Does the intent fit what you sell? A keyword with 5,000 searches and the wrong intent is worth less than one with 200 and the right one. Check what Google shows for it. If the results are recipe pages and you sell kitchen scales, skip it. The search intent post explains how to read the results page.
Can you win it? A difficulty score roughly estimates how strong the ranking pages are. A new site should start with the low-difficulty end of the list and treat the hard keywords as a later project. Read what keyword difficulty measures before you trust any single number.
Do you already have a page that should rank? This one gets skipped most. If you have a page on the topic and it doesn't rank, the keyword is weak, not missing, and a new page would compete with the old one. Search your own site for the topic before you brief it.
A keyword that passes all three goes on the list. Then sort by searches, highest first.
Turn keyword gaps into content briefs
Start each brief from the competitor page that wins the most gap keywords. It shows what Google already rewards for the topic.
For each brief, write down:
- The main keyword and the three to ten related gap keywords that rank on the same competitor URL.
- The intent, and the format the results page favors, such as a guide, a calculator, a template or a comparison.
- What the competitor page covers, read by a person, not summarized by a tool.
- What yours will add that theirs lacks, such as a worked example, real numbers from your product, or a step they skip.
- The pages on your site that will link to it.
Skip the fourth point and you get a copy of their page, which nothing has a reason to prefer.
An illustrative example. A scheduling app finds that a rival's no-show cost calculator ranks for 40 missing keywords. That is one brief, for one calculator page, not 40 blog posts.
Find your keyword gap with one competitor
Our Keyword Gap tool takes your site, one competitor and a country. It asks our keyword data for the 300 most searched keywords the competitor ranks for and your site does not, then drops any where the competitor sits below position 20. Each keyword comes back with the competitor's position and ranking URL, estimated monthly searches, difficulty, intent and cost per click. The report marks the easy keywords, at a difficulty of 30 or less, splits out blog topics and keywords worth bidding on in Google Ads, sets brand searches aside and lists the competitor pages that win the most gap keywords.
It covers the missing set only. It does not show weak or shared keywords, keywords outside the country you pick or the competitor's Google Ads, and it cannot see your Search Console. Search volumes and difficulty are estimates. A run costs 85 credits. If our data has no record for the pair, the run is refunded. A run that compares both sites and finds no gap is still charged.