SEO competitor analysis and keyword gap

Your search competitors aren't always your business competitors

The companies you lose deals to and the websites you lose Google clicks to are often different lists. A software company's search competitors include review sites, blogs and comparison pages. A local plumber competes on Google with directories and DIY guides as well as other plumbers.

That's why step one starts from your site, not from a list you already have. We look at the keywords your site ranks for in Google's US top 100 and find the other sites that appear for the most of the same searches. The world's biggest sites, such as Wikipedia, YouTube and Amazon, are left out, because they show up for everything and you can't do much about them.

Shared keywords tells you how much ground you have in common. Their visits and keywords tell you how big they are. A site with lots of shared keywords and much more traffic than you is the one to study first.

How to read the keyword gap

The gap lists keywords where the competitor ranks in Google's top 20 in the US and your site doesn't appear in the top 100. These are searches where Google already sends visitors to a site like yours, and your site isn't in the running.

• Searches / month and Difficulty tell you how big and how hard each keyword is.
• Their position and their page show what's working for them. Open the page: that's the bar you need to clear.
• Searcher wants tells you what kind of page the search needs, which matters more than the keyword's wording.

The header counts every gap keyword, which can run into thousands for a large competitor. The table shows the 100 most searched. Sort by difficulty to find the ones within reach.

Turning the gap into a plan

Not every gap is worth closing. Skip keywords about things you don't sell, branded searches for the competitor, and topics only a much bigger site could win. What's left usually falls into three buckets.

• Topics you've never written about. These need new pages. Group related keywords first, so you write one strong page instead of five thin ones.
• Topics you cover, but not well enough to rank. Improve the existing page: answer the search more directly, cover what their page covers, and link to it from your other pages.
• Formats you don't have. If their winning pages are comparisons, calculators or templates, that's what searchers want, and an article won't substitute.

Start with keywords that have real searches and a difficulty within reach. The page header counts how many have at least 50 searches a month and a difficulty of 40 or less.

What this tool can't see

All data is Google in the US, in English, from a third-party ranking database that tracks a very large set of keywords but not every search. Positions are refreshed regularly, not live. It shows rankings, not results: a competitor ranking for a keyword doesn't tell you it brings them customers. And it only knows sites that already rank for something; a brand-new site has no keywords to compare yet.