{"id":3281,"date":"2026-05-23T19:53:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/23\/how-to-do-a-keyword-gap-analysis\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T19:53:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:53:47","slug":"how-to-do-a-keyword-gap-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/23\/how-to-do-a-keyword-gap-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Do a Keyword Gap Analysis (Step-by-Step)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <strong>keyword gap analysis<\/strong> finds the searches your competitors rank for and you don&#39;t. It&#39;s one of the highest-leverage moves in SEO because it skips the guesswork: instead of brainstorming topics and hoping they have demand, you let proven competitors hand you a list of keywords that <em>already<\/em> drive traffic in your market.<\/p>\n<p>This guide walks through the whole process \u2014 what a gap is, how to find your real competitors, how to pull the gaps, and how to decide which ones are actually worth chasing.<\/p>\n<h2>What is a keyword gap?<\/h2>\n<p>A keyword gap is any query where:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One or more of your competitors ranks on page one, <strong>and<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>You either don&#39;t rank at all, or rank so low (page 3+) that you get no traffic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Each gap is a piece of demand your competitors are capturing and you&#39;re missing. Close enough of them and you don&#39;t just add traffic \u2014 you start taking it from the people currently winning it.<\/p>\n<p>There are two flavors worth separating:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Shared gaps<\/strong> \u2014 keywords <em>several<\/em> competitors rank for but you don&#39;t. These are usually core topics for your category. High confidence they matter.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unique gaps<\/strong> \u2014 keywords just <em>one<\/em> competitor ranks for. These can be hidden gold (an angle nobody else spotted) or noise (irrelevant to your business). Treat with more scrutiny.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 1: Identify your <em>real<\/em> SEO competitors<\/h2>\n<p>Your SEO competitors are not always your business competitors. The site outranking you for &quot;best CRM for small teams&quot; might be a blog or a review site, not a rival product.<\/p>\n<p>To find your true SEO competitors:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>List 5-10 of your most important target keywords.<\/li>\n<li>Search each one (in an incognito window) and note which domains repeatedly appear on page one.<\/li>\n<li>The domains that show up across <em>many<\/em> of your target searches are your real SEO competitors \u2014 those are the ones to gap against.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Pick 3-5. More than that and the analysis turns to mush.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 2: Pull each competitor&#39;s ranking keywords<\/h2>\n<p>For every competitor, you need the list of keywords they currently rank for. You have a few options:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A dedicated SEO tool<\/strong> (Ahrefs, Semrush, etc.) \u2014 enter the competitor&#39;s domain, export &quot;Organic Keywords.&quot;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Google Search Console<\/strong> \u2014 only shows <em>your<\/em> data, so it tells you where you already rank (useful for the next step), not competitors&#39;.<\/li>\n<li><strong>An automated tool<\/strong> that does competitor discovery and keyword extraction for you, so you skip the manual exports entirely.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Export each competitor&#39;s keyword list to a spreadsheet, one tab per competitor.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 3: Subtract what you already rank for<\/h2>\n<p>Now overlay your own ranking keywords (from Search Console or your tool) and remove them. What&#39;s left is the raw gap: keywords competitors rank for that you don&#39;t.<\/p>\n<p>A quick way to do this in a spreadsheet: put all competitor keywords in one column, your keywords in another, and use a lookup to flag any competitor keyword that doesn&#39;t appear in your list. Those flagged rows are your gaps.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 4: Filter for keywords worth chasing<\/h2>\n<p>A raw gap list is too long and full of junk. Filter it down with four lenses:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Relevance.<\/strong> Would this keyword bring someone who could actually become a customer? Cut anything off-topic, no matter the volume.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Search volume.<\/strong> Enough demand to be worth an article. (Low volume can still be worth it if intent is high \u2014 a &quot;best [your product] for [niche]&quot; query converts even at 90 searches\/month.)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Difficulty vs. your authority.<\/strong> A new site can&#39;t win high-difficulty head terms yet. Sort by difficulty ascending and start where you can realistically rank.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Intent.<\/strong> Match the keyword to where the searcher is \u2014 informational (&quot;how to\u2026&quot;), commercial (&quot;best\u2026&quot;, &quot;vs&quot;, &quot;alternative&quot;), or transactional. Bottom-funnel commercial gaps usually pay back fastest.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The output of this step is a <strong>prioritized<\/strong> list: the gaps that are relevant, have demand, are winnable for <em>your<\/em> domain right now, and match a clear intent.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 5: Cluster the gaps into topics<\/h2>\n<p>Don&#39;t write one article per keyword \u2014 you&#39;ll create thin, cannibalizing pages. Group related keywords into <strong>topic clusters<\/strong> and assign one strong article per cluster, targeting the head keyword and naturally covering the variations.<\/p>\n<p>For example, &quot;keyword gap analysis,&quot; &quot;how to find competitor keywords,&quot; and &quot;content gap analysis&quot; all belong to one cluster, covered by one comprehensive guide (like this one) rather than three competing posts.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 6: Write, publish, and link<\/h2>\n<p>For each prioritized cluster:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Write content that genuinely beats what&#39;s currently ranking \u2014 more useful, more specific, more current.<\/li>\n<li>Link new posts to your money pages and to each other to build topical authority.<\/li>\n<li>Publish, then track impressions and position in Search Console over the following weeks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The shortcut: automate the whole loop<\/h2>\n<p>Steps 1-5 are powerful but tedious \u2014 exports, spreadsheets, lookups, filtering. This is precisely the loop <a href=\"https:\/\/seowires.com\/\">SEO Wires<\/a> automates. You give it your URL; it handles <a href=\"https:\/\/seowires.com\/#how-it-works\">competitor decoding<\/a>, pulls the keywords your rivals own and you don&#39;t, and hands back an <a href=\"https:\/\/seowires.com\/\">automated topic roadmap<\/a> already clustered and ranked by opportunity \u2014 then writes the article for each topic, in your brand voice, ready to publish.<\/p>\n<p>So you can run the manual process above when you want full control, or let the pipeline do the analysis-to-article work for you. Either way, the strategy is the same: <strong>let your competitors tell you what to write next.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"https:\/\/seowires.com\/pricing\">pricing<\/a> \u2014 every account starts with free credits, enough to run a full site analysis and see your own gaps.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Frequently asked questions<\/h3>\n<p><strong>What is the difference between a keyword gap and a content gap?<\/strong><br \/>\nA keyword gap focuses on specific search queries competitors rank for and you don&#39;t. A content gap is broader \u2014 entire topics or subtopics your competitors cover and you haven&#39;t. A keyword gap analysis is usually how you discover content gaps.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How often should I run a keyword gap analysis?<\/strong><br \/>\nQuarterly is a good cadence for most sites. Rankings shift, competitors publish new content, and new gaps open up. Run it more often if you&#39;re publishing aggressively or in a fast-moving niche.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can I do a keyword gap analysis for free?<\/strong><br \/>\nPartially. Google Search Console (free) shows where you rank. Manually searching your target keywords reveals competitors. The tedious part \u2014 pulling competitors&#39; full keyword lists \u2014 usually needs a paid tool or an automated service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A keyword gap analysis finds the searches your competitors rank for and you don&#8217;t. Here&#8217;s a clear, step-by-step process to find \u2014 and close \u2014 those gaps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seowires.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}