How to Do Keyword Gap Analysis: Full Guide (+Free Template)

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Keyword gap analysis is a powerful tool that helps you find opportunities from competitors and rank higher. Most businesses focus only on finding new keywords, but overlook the high-intent, valuable keywords that can improve their search rankings. 

But how do you find these gaps and opportunities and determine the right keywords for your SaaS?

We will guide you step by step to learn how to do keyword gap analysis, why it matters, what to avoid, common SEO tools to use, and a free ready-to-use template to help you get started.

What Is a Keyword Gap Analysis? 

Keyword gap analysis is part of the SEO strategy that helps you find keyword opportunities that your competitors already rank for, and you don’t.

This process is essential if you want to improve your search rankings because you can identify common gaps and cover keywords that you haven’t targeted yet.

To stay competitive in your SaaS industry, you need to ensure that your content aligns with search intent. And the keyword gap analysis process will help you achieve that.

Keyword Gap Analysis vs. Content Gap Analysis 

These two terms are related, but their approach and purpose are different. 

Category	Keyword Gap Analysis	Content Gap Analysis
Focus	Specific keywords competitors rank for that your website does not	Topics or content types missing from your website
Scope	Individual search terms and ranking opportunities	The broader customer journey, user needs, and content coverage
Data Source	Keyword tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Search Console	Customer research, competitor content audits, and journey mapping
Output	A list of target keywords with search volume, difficulty, and ranking opportunities	A list of missing content ideas, pages, or topics to create
Best For	Finding quick wins, improving existing pages, and targeting new keywords	Building topical authority and covering gaps across the marketing funnel
Example Finding	“best CRM for lead tracking” (1,200 searches/month, KD 28)	“How to choose the right CRM for your industry”

Keyword gap analysis focuses on identifying specific terms your competitors rank for, while content gap analysis helps you understand which topics your audience needs and your page is missing.

For example, if your product or service is SaaS management software, the keyword gap analysis will include discovering keywords to target from your competitors, including:

• “SaaS management software for remote teams”
• “best SaaS tools for workflow automation”
• “free SaaS tools for small businesses”

A content gap analysis looks at the bigger picture; it identifies what your audience looks for, their pain points, and solutions to support their decision-making process. This includes creating content such as:

• “Complete guide to managing remote teams effectively”
• “Step-by-step guide to improve your workflow with SaaS management software”
• “How to choose the best SaaS solution for your business”

Why Performing Keyword Gap Analysis Matters 

With keyword gap research, you increase the chances of staying competitive in your niche.

If you don’t act, your target audience is more likely to find the solutions they need from your competitors instead of you.

Also, finding the right keywords can:

• Bring more qualified traffic. Especially if the keywords have commercial or transactional intent.
• Improve conversion rate. Queries that indicate buying intent, such as “best,” “comparison,” “alternatives,” “pricing,” and “how to choose”, tend to attract users who are closer to conversion. 
• Find quick wins. Keywords that you already rank for but underperform often need a small optimization to rank better.
• Create a clear content roadmap. Instead of guessing what to write next, you can use data to see where competitors are winning and where you have opportunities. 

How to Do a Keyword Gap Analysis: 8 Practical Steps

Let’s now focus on the 8 simple, practical steps for conducting a keyword gap analysis.

Step 1: Find Your Competitors

As a starting point, you need to find the right competitors and ensure you are getting results from the relevant industry. These can be direct SaaS competitors that offer the same products or services as you or indirect competitors that rank on Google for keywords you’re targeting.

You can do this with any SEO tools. We use Ahrefs, so if your product is “SaaS management software”, your competitors could be:

Or you can search them manually on Google. When doing this, choose the organic competitors; avoid paid search results.

Pick at least three competitors. Analyze their services, blogs, industry pages, and create a comprehensive list.

Step 2: Pick the Best Keyword Gap Analysis Tool (Paid + Free Options)

The SEO tool you choose helps you conduct in-depth competitor keyword analysis. 

For a paid version, Ahrefs, SEMrush, SERanking, and similar tools are good choices.

But if your budget is tight, you can do manual SERP analysis as shown in Step 1, or use Google Search Console.

On GSC, it shows all the keywords you already rank for, together with impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position.

This data is useful for finding the “quick wins” keywords that you already rank on the second page on Google, and with small improvements you can boost your rankings.

Step 3: Create the Keyword List

Next, you need to create a full list of relevant keywords that you don’t rank for and your competitors do. 

In Ahrefs, you can conduct competitor keyword analysis by comparing your page with competitors where you will find at least one competitor ranking in the top 10, and you don’t.

You can add filters such as intent, keywords containing the exact phrase, SERP features, etc., to make your research more specific and detailed.

Export the list so you can further evaluate and prioritize relevant keywords, which we will focus on in the next step.

Step 4: Evaluate and Prioritize the Keywords

Once you exported the list, you need to analyze them and prioritize which one to target first. 

Avoid choosing random keywords that won’t help your rankings. Choose keywords based on search volume (SV), keyword difficulty (KD), and assess them based on business value, ranking potential, and search intent.

Consider the following questions for each keyword:

• Does it align with your business goals? Prioritize keywords that can drive qualified traffic, leads, or sales, not just visits.
• What is the search intent? Determine whether the query is informational, commercial, or transactional. Keywords with stronger purchase intent (e.g., best, vs, pricing, review) often deliver higher conversions.
• Can you realistically rank? Review the current SERP to see if competitors have high domain authority or if there is an opportunity to compete with better content.

Once you’ve evaluated the keywords, group them into high, medium, and low priority. This will help you create a focused content roadmap based on real opportunities that will generate meaningful results.

Step 5: Analyze Top-Ranking Competitor Pages

After you have listed the most potential keywords, analyze the pages that already rank in the top 10 for that keyword. Before targeting a keyword, it is essential to understand why they rank and whether you have a realistic chance of competing.

Look beyond keyword usage and evaluate the overall ranking strategy. Ask yourself:

• Why does this page rank? Is it because of strong backlinks, high domain authority, topical authority, or exceptionally comprehensive content? 
• What content format is Google rewarding? Are the top results blog posts, comparison pages, product pages, or guides? 
• Do competitors support this page with a content cluster? Many high-ranking pages are backed by related articles that strengthen topical authority. 
• Can you create something better? Identify gaps in the existing content, such as outdated information, missing examples, or poor user experience. 
• Is the competition realistic? If the SERP is dominated by industry leaders with extensive authority, it may be more effective to prioritize another keyword first. 

For example, if you see that the SERP is dominated by pages that are highly authoritative, it may be difficult to compete. In this case, prioritize keywords where you have a more realistic chance of ranking. 

Consider related matching terms to find a better keyword you can actually rank for.

Step 6: Cluster Them into Topics and Build Your Content Plan

At this point, you should already have a list of potential keywords. 

Rather than creating one page for every keyword, group related keywords into topic clusters. Why is this important?

Clustering keywords into topics helps you avoid keyword cannibalization, which is very common in SaaS businesses with traffic drops. Also, creating supporting pages will help you build topical authority. 

For example, if your primary keyword is “SaaS management software”, you can organize your keywords like this:

Pillar Topic	Supporting Keywords
SaaS Management Software	best SaaS management software, SaaS management platform
SaaS Management Features	SaaS license management, SaaS spend management, SaaS inventory
SaaS Buying Guides	how to choose SaaS management software, SaaS management software pricing, SaaS management software comparison

Pillar pages for SaaS are the foundation of strengthening your topical authority. This way you can create a logical content calendar.

Below, you will find an example of a blog content calendar that we’ve built from a keyword gap analysis. We grouped the keywords into clusters, prioritized by business value, and organized into a publishing schedule. 

Step 7: Create High-Quality Content

Now it’s time to use this missing keywords analysis to create a high-qulity content that matches search intent. 

How to do that?

• Identify which type of content ranks.
• Analyze the on-page SEO elements, including heading structure, meta tags, and content length.
• Include semantic variations of the main keyword to avoid keyword stuffing.
• See if there are images, graphics, or other visual elements that you can add.

Always add a unique perspective to the content. Readers want to find solutions based on real practices. So, any real data or original, real-world insights add value for your readers while signaling quality and authority to Google, helping improve your search rankings and visibility.

Step 8: Track Your Performance

As a final step, always monitor the performance of your page. To see if your keyword gap analysis was successful, track some of the following metrics:

• Impressions, clicks, CTR in GSC
• On Ahrefs, monitor which terms your page is ranking for
• Organic traffic from search engines after implementing your keyword gap strategy

What to Avoid When Analyzing Keyword Gap?

Avoiding common mistakes in this process is as important as the actual keyword gap analysis. It can help from wasting your resources and create ineffective strategies.

Try to avoid these common mistakes:

• Chasing irrelevant competitor keywords
• Ignoring search intent mismatch
• Picking high-authoritative competitors
• Prioritizing search volume over relevance and conversion potential
• Creating a page for each keyword

Free Keyword Gap Template

We’ve created a ready-to-use keyword gap template to help you organize your analysis and identify valuable keyword opportunities faster. No email required.

This template helped us increase the rankings for our clients by 70%.

Export your raw keyword data from whichever tool you used, then paste it into the columns below and work through the clustering and prioritization steps.

Identify and Fill Keyword Gaps with SmartClick

Now that you know how to do keyword gap analysis, you can start analyzing your competitors and create optimized content that will improve your visibility and traffic.

If you want help from experts, the SmartClick team can support you and create an SEO strategy tailored to your goals.

Book a free consultation to learn where your website is missing valuable ranking opportunities. 

FAQs

What’s the difference between keyword gap analysis and content gap analysis?

In the keyword gap analysis process, you analyze specific terms your competitors rank for and you don’t. In the content gap analysis, you look at the entire topic, content structure, and any other on-page elements that you are missing on your page.

How often should I do keyword gap analysis?

Quarterly works best for most SaaS businesses. Conduct it sooner if you notice your competitor published more content, or if you notice a sudden traffic or ranking drop.

How to do keyword gap analysis?

Pick 3-5 competitors, use an SEO tool like Ahrefs, and compare which keywords your competitors rank for and you don’t. Make a list, evaluate the keywords, prioritize them by relevance, difficulty, search volume, and business scope, and cluster them into content topics for further content creation. Track the page for any opportunities.

What’s the best free tool for keyword research?

The best free keyword research tool is Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner. You can also choose the free versions of Ahrefs, SEMrush, or other advanced tools. The tool you choose depends on your business goal and the features it offers.

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