What is a keyword gap?

A keyword gap is the difference between the keywords your competitors rank for and your website does not. A keyword gap analysis maps those missing keywords, so you can see which topics you have no page for yet, or where your pages rank lower than your competitors’ pages.

Why is a keyword gap important?

Quick wins: you find keywords that already bring proven traffic to others.
Content planning: you get a well-founded list of topics for new pages.
Competitor insight: you see where competitors are strong and where they are not.

Examples of a keyword gap

A garden furniture store sees that two competitors rank for “how to maintain a lounge set” and it does not.
An IT company finds that competitors have pages about “managed backup”, while it only has one general service page.

How do you run a keyword gap analysis?

Enter your own domain and three to five competitors in a tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Sistrix, and filter for keywords they rank for and you do not. Judge them on search intent and relevance, then turn them into pages or articles (content marketing).

Keyword gap