You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You’ve probably heard that saying used before in any number of situations. It’s used all the time in SEO, thanks to competitor analysis tools.
You can quite literally generate an entire SEO strategy just by looking at a single competitor that’s killing it in your niche. You just need to learn how to do keyword gap analysis.
Wait, what is a keyword gap analysis – and what makes it such a powerful tactic in your SEO journey? This is nothing more than comparing your website to a competitor’s and seeing what they rank for that you don’t.
From there, you can “close the gap,” either by optimizing existing pages or creating new ones to target the keywords in question. The best part is that this strategy takes only a few clicks and a bit of thoughtful analysis after the fact.
Our affordable keyword research tool empowers you to not only uncover these gaps but also assess difficulty, volume, and other critical keyword research metrics so you can tackle the low-hanging fruit and get an ROI fast.
Discover how our free SEO tools can save you time and stress while bringing out the full potential of your site. In the meantime, we’ll show you how to find keyword gap below.
What is a Keyword Gap Analysis? Keyword Gap Meaning
So what is a keyword gap analysis? We briefly touched on the keyword gap meaning already, but let’s expand a bit to show you just how powerful this technique can be.
The “gaps” are untapped opportunities to expand your reach, improve your rankings, and attract more traffic. You can use this tactic to build an SEO strategy from scratch but it also helps you find areas of improvement.
It involves an understanding of search visibility from a competitive perspective. For instance, if your competitor is dominating a keyword like “best organic skincare,” while your content misses this term entirely, a keyword gap analysis would uncover this oversight.
It also shows you the search volume, competition, and intent behind each keyword, so you can be more measured and targeted in your next steps.
This is important because ranking for the right keywords can mean the difference between reaching your ideal audience or losing them to competitors. But before we get into how to do keyword gap analysis, let’s quickly show you how it differs from content gap analysis.
Comparison With Content Gap Analysis
We see these two strategies referred to as if they’re describing the same thing, but they aren’t. Keyword gap analysis and content gap analysis are distinct from one another, though they do share some similarities:
- Keyword Gap Analysis: Pinpoints missing individual search terms or phrases. For example, a competitor ranks for “vegan protein powders” while your site misses out. It’s granular in that it involves specific search opportunities.
- Content Gap Analysis: Identifies overarching themes or subjects that competitors cover extensively but your site does not. For example, if a competitor has an entire series on “plant-based nutrition” but you have only a single blog post, this is a content gap.
In this sense, content gap analysis recognizes the absence of comprehensive coverage. This is important for websites trying to become known as an authority within a niche.
You’d use a content gap analysis to build out more comprehensive content strategies or ecosystems around missing themes, whereas a keyword gap analysis optimizes search term targeting within existing or new content.
The key takeaway is that you need both, as this will address both granular and thematic gaps as you seek to maximize your organic search visibility. But for the sake of this conversation, we’ll focus only on how to find keyword gap going forward.
Why You Need to Conduct Keyword Gap Analysis
You’re probably starting to see why it’s worth taking the time to learn how to do keyword gap analysis already. But before we walk you through the strategy we want to make it crystal clear why you need to regularly conduct gap analysis for your biggest competitors.
Uncover Missed Opportunities
A keyword gap analysis brings valuable search terms to your fingertips that your competitors are ranking for that you aren’t. You might not have even thought about these opportunities without pulling insights directly from your rival’s website!
These missed opportunities often include high-converting, niche-specific, or long-tail keywords that align with your audience’s needs. They’re a perfect addition to your content calendar – or, you might already have content that could be ranking for them with a few quick tweaks!
Stay Ahead of Competitors
There are only so many customers or website visitors within a single niche, even the biggest and most broad niches. Any traffic to your competitor’s websites is traffic you could be generating. It’s worth trying to siphon their traffic whenever possible.
Keyword gap analysis identifies keywords where competitors are performing well and you aren’t. From there, you can tailor your content to match or surpass their rankings.
Boost Organic Traffic
The short answer for why you should learn how to find keyword gap is this: you can bring in more organic traffic. It’s really that simple.
Because the keywords you’re uncovering are proven performers in your niche, they’re prime candidates for dedicating resources to – whether that’s building new content or acquiring more backlinks. We’ll talk more about what to do after keyword research shortly.
Improve Paid Campaigns
It’s not just SEOs that can benefit from doing keyword gap analysis, but anyone running paid advertising campaigns as well. Your competitors might be earning their most profitable sales from these keywords, so why not steal a piece of the pie yourself?
How to Do Keyword Gap Analysis in Just a Few Clicks
There are so many ways you can learn how to research keywords for a niche – keyword gap analysis just happens to be among the easiest.
It involves no critical thinking outside of finding competitor URLs and a tool that supports gap analysis. That being said, here’s how to do keyword gap analysis in just a few clicks.
Step 1: Choose the Right Tool for the Job
It all starts with finding the right tool to help you spy on your competitors and steal their strategy. There are so many options at your disposal, but none better than Keysearch.
Our solution makes it quick and easy to uncover the top keywords for your niche. More than 10,000 users rely on our all-in-one SEO toolkit each month, with hundreds of positive testimonials showcasing what makes it the #1 choice.
Whether you’re trying to find short vs long tail keywords, or even wondering how to find a profitable niche in the first place, you can use Keysearch. Here are just a few of the many tools you get in a single subscription:
- Niche finder
- Keyword difficulty tool
- Keyword clustering tool
- Keyword density analyzer tool
- Duplicate content checker
- Robots txt generator
- Long tail keyword generator
- SERP simulator
- LSI keyword generator
You can also conduct gap analysis on a specific platform you’re trying to rank on outside of Google with our Amazon keyword research tool, Pinterest keyword research tool, Etsy keyword tool, YouTube keyword generator, or eBay keyword research tool.
The best part is Keysearch is free to start with and once you see how powerful it is you can scale up to one of our more advanced tiers – starting at just $17/month.
It checks every box on your keyword research checklist, whether you’re trying to learn how to find keyword density or how to find keyword difficulty. But you came here to learn how to find keyword gap, so once you’re set up with an account, here’s how it works.
Step 2: Identify Your Competitors
The only thing you need to do keyword gap analysis is a tool and a competitor – ideally, a couple of competitors for the most comprehensive insights. Select competitors who dominate the same niche or rank well for keywords you’re trying to target but haven’t had much success with.
Enter their domain URLs into the keyword gap tool alongside your own. This comparison will highlight the keywords they rank for but you don’t, giving you a roadmap for optimizing your site.
Step 3: Analyze the Keyword Data
Once the tool generates results, you’ll be able to zero in on key metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, and ranking position. The way in which you prioritize keywords will depend on your goals, your site’s authority, and the resources you have to dedicate.
One of the most common questions we get asked at this step in the process is, what is a good keyword difficulty? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Our advice, though, is to start with keywords that show high traffic potential but manageable difficulty.
These low-hanging fruit can quickly boost your rankings without having to spend thousands on backlinking, or wait months for results. Learn more about the advantages of long tail keywords in our blog, as these are likely where you should focus your efforts.
Step 4: Segment Keywords by Intent
Group keywords by search intent – informational, transactional, or navigational. This helps you create tailored content that aligns with the user’s journey so you can target the right audience with the right message.
For example, you wouldn’t try to rank a blog post for the keyword “grocery delivery service.” You’d try to rank a landing page. On the other hand, you wouldn’t try to rank a tool for the keyword, “does keyword density still matter.” It has informational intent.
The point is, you need to align the page you’re trying to rank with what the user is looking for. The easiest way to do this is see what types of pages are ranking for the keyword. Are they landing pages, home pages, or blog posts? Follow suit.
Like we said from the start – don’t try to reinvent the wheel!
Step 5: Map Keywords to Content Opportunities
If you don’t already know how to group keywords, you’re going to want to read our more in-depth resource on the subject as it’s an important part of figuring out how to do keyword gap analysis.
The idea is there are many keyword variations you can rank a single page for, rather than trying to rank multiple resources for similar keywords. For example, this article you’re reading right now addresses:
- What is a keyword gap analysis
- How to find keyword gap
- How to do keyword gap analysis
These are technically three unique keywords, but it wouldn’t make sense to create three different resources, right? We can cover all this in a single, deep resource.
Google rewards this approach with better rankings, as it creates a better user experience. That’s what it’s all about, after all.
Optimize Existing Content
Brand new sites or those branching into a new niche will focus on creating new content after conducting gap analysis for competitor keywords. However, those with a database of existing resources can likely optimize existing content instead.
Take a look at your website architecture and see if there are any opportunities to add or update content that addresses the gaps uncovered during analysis.
This could be as simple as reformatting the keyword targeting of an existing product page or adding a new section to a blog post. These small adjustments can really move the needle.
Step 7: Track Your Progress
You will likely need to make ongoing adjustments to your content, which is why you need to have rank tracking setup, whether it’s YouTube keyword rank tracking or Google rank tracking.
There are plenty of tools that can help you do this, including Keysearch. Set it up and monitor your rankings over time to see how your efforts translate into traffic and conversions.
Closing Thoughts on How to Do Keyword Gap Analysis
That does it for our guide on how to find keyword gap. In closing, what is a keyword gap analysis? In plain terms, this is a tactic that uncovers the keywords your competitors are generating traffic from but you are not. It’s a must for any website, regardless of type or scale.
Our blog has additional resources on how to do keyword research for YouTube, automated keyword research, how to do keyword research for Pinterest, where to include long-tail keywords in website, how to improve Etsy SEO, how to add keywords to YouTube video, how to do keyword research for Amazon and how to do Etsy keyword research.
Or, you can see how Keysearch stacks up to the competition with these comparison guides:
But now that you know how to do keyword gap analysis, the only thing left to do is put these tips into practice and start siphoning traffic from your competitor using this strategy.
It takes just a few clicks with Keysearch, so what are you waiting for? Start closing the gap between you and your competitors with our free SEO and keyword research tools today.
- How to Do Keyword Research for Free: Best Free Keyword Research Tools in 2024 - December 13, 2024
- Benefits of Keyword Clustering: Why is it Important to Group Relevant Keywords Together? - December 13, 2024
- What is Keyword Density in SEO and Its Importance - December 13, 2024
