Blog Post

Your content’s doing okay. You’re ranking for a few terms. Traffic’s steady. But something feels off.

You’re missing out on topics your competitors dominate—topics your audience is actively searching for. That’s where keyword gap analysis comes in.

This post walks you through how I identify keyword gaps and turn them into strategic content opportunities. No fluff, no filler—just the process I actually use to grow organic visibility and uncover low-hanging content wins.

• What a keyword gap is (and why most sites have one)
  
• How to spot the gaps your competitors are capitalizing on
  
• The tools I use to run keyword gap analysis fast and effectively
  
• My framework for turning gaps into ranked, relevant content
  
• What to avoid when filling the gaps (yes, it’s possible to mess this up)
  

A keyword gap is a search term that your competitors rank for—but you don’t.

Sometimes you’ve never targeted it. Sometimes you wrote about it, but not well enough to rank. Either way, it’s a missed opportunity.

The good news? Most keyword gaps are fixable—if you:

• Know what to look for
  
• Understand searcher intent
  
• Create content with a real strategy behind it
  

I use gap analysis not just to fix what’s missing, but to prioritize what’s worth writing next.

Every gap tells a story:

• What your audience is looking for
  
• What your competitors are winning on
  
• Where your content strategy is underperforming
  

If your competitors rank for a valuable keyword, it means:

• There’s demand
  
• Google sees it as relevant
  
• And you’re not showing up
  

When I analyze gaps, I’m looking for:

• Keywords aligned with buyer intent
  
• Queries with business value
  
• Topics I can improve on or own with better content
  

If you want to stop publishing content that disappears into the void, start here.

Not everyone in your industry is a real SEO competitor. I focus on:

• Sites that rank in the top 10 for my target keywords
  
• Brands publishing content similar to mine (not just product pages)
  
• Competitors with similar domain strength or slightly stronger
  

It’s tempting to chase the biggest players, but if you’re a B2B startup, comparing yourself to HubSpot isn’t actionable. Start with your real search competitors.

Here’s how I get the data:

Plug in your site and up to three competitors.
It shows you what they rank for that you don’t.

Filter by:

• Volume (I like 100–2,000/month range)
  
• Difficulty (low-to-medium KD if your site’s still building)
  
• Intent (use modifiers like “best,” “compare,” “how to”)
  

Similar process, but great for visualizing overlap vs. unique terms.
Sort by:

• Keywords competitors rank in top 10 for
  
• Keywords where you have no presence at all
  

For enterprise-level gap analysis with performance mapping by page and keyword group.

These tools save hours of manual digging and instantly surface opportunities your content hasn’t captured.

Not every gap is worth filling.

I filter keywords by:

• Relevance to our product/service
  
• Intent match (informational, commercial, or transactional)
  
• Likelihood of ranking with reasonable effort
  
• Potential for conversion, not just traffic
  

I also check existing content—sometimes a page ranks for the wrong term or needs optimization instead of a rewrite.

I explain my prioritization system in detail here:
Keyword Prioritization Tips

Once the right gaps are chosen, I turn them into content opportunities.

Intent Type	Example Keyword	Content Type
Informational	“how to onboard remote employees”	Blog post or guide
Commercial	“best onboarding software”	Comparison page
Transactional	“buy employee onboarding software”	Landing page

This is how I keep content structured and aligned with the journey—not just scattered across the blog.

Want help segmenting by funnel? Start here:
Content Mapping by Funnel Stage

Here’s where the opportunity turns into action. I either:

• Create a new piece of content targeting the gap
  
• Optimize an existing page with better structure, internal links, and keyword alignment
  

Each gap deserves a strategic approach, not a rushed post.

Before publishing, I check:

• Is the keyword naturally included in the title, headers, and intro?
  
• Does the content meet the search intent?
  
• Are we linking to and from related pages?
  

More on building out the structure here:
Keyword Clustering Strategy

After filling keyword gaps, I monitor:

• New keyword rankings
  
• Organic traffic lifts
  
• Conversion behavior from newly optimized content
  

SEO isn’t instant, but in 30–90 days, I usually see early signals.

Quarterly, I rerun the gap analysis to:

• Spot new missed terms
  
• Check how competitors have adjusted
  
• Identify decaying content that needs a refresh
  

Here’s where I’ve seen teams go wrong:

• Chasing every keyword a competitor ranks for (without filtering)
  
• Publishing “me too” content with no unique value
  
• Creating thin content just to plug a hole
  
• Ignoring intent—especially at the bottom of the funnel
  

Remember, not all gaps are worth filling. Some are best left alone. Others? They’re your fastest path to results.

Keyword gaps aren’t failures. They’re content opportunities waiting to be claimed.

They show you:

• What to write next
  
• Where your strategy is falling short
  
• How to beat competitors at their own game
  

It’s not about copying—it’s about out-positioning and out-serving them.

If you’re stuck on what to publish next, this is the move.
Audit, analyze, act.Need help turning keyword gaps into a structured content roadmap?
Start with my full Keyword Research Guide for 2025, or jump straight to How to Build a Content Strategy Around Keyword Research