# Keyword Gap Analysis: Steps, Tools, and How to Filter It

> A keyword gap analysis finds keywords competitors rank for that you don't. How to run one, filter the list without guessing, and read the results correctly.

- URL: https://missiongrowth.io/blog/keyword-gap-analysis
- Published: 2026-07-28 · Updated: 2026-09-23
- Author: Ömer Furkan Aktaş, Founder, Mission Growth
- Publisher: Mission Growth. Company facts: https://missiongrowth.io/llms.txt

You exported a keyword gap report and now you're staring at thousands of rows a competitor ranks for that you don't. The two headline numbers on that report, keyword count and traffic estimate, look like a verdict. They aren't.

A keyword gap analysis compares your site's rankings against a handful of competitors. It surfaces exactly which keywords they rank for and you don't.

The loop behind it is simple: pick competitors, run a tool, filter the list, create or update content. What that loop leaves out is the judgment layer: how to filter that list without borrowing a vendor's own demo-account number, how to catch a row that looks big on paper but wastes a content brief, and where a chat AI tool like ChatGPT actually fits in.

In this guide:

- What a keyword gap analysis is, and why it still pays off
- The keyword gap analysis steps, with a filtering rule tied to your own site instead of a vendor's example
- How to tell a real opportunity from a report row that looks big but isn't
- What each major keyword gap tool actually includes
- Where ChatGPT and other AI tools fit in the process

## What a keyword gap analysis is (and how it still earns the effort)

The comparison runs against a handful of competitors at once, which is what makes a missing term look like a pattern rather than an accident.

It still pays off, because organic search remains the largest traffic channel most sites have. More than half of a typical site's traffic still comes from organic search, even now.

A commonly repeated organic-traffic figure understates it. BrightEdge's own newer research puts the real share at 53%, from a 2019 analysis, correcting the lower number still floating around older posts. That organic share is worth protecting even as AI Overviews change how much of it reaches your site. See [the AI Overviews SEO impact on how much organic traffic you keep](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/what-ai-overviews-mean-for-seo) for the mechanics.

Keyword gap vs content gap, in one table:

| | Keyword gap analysis | Content gap analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Compares | Individual ranking keywords | Topics and pages covered |
| Typical output | A list of missing keywords with volume, KD and position | A list of missing subtopics or pages |

Vendors use the two terms interchangeably in their own marketing. A keyword gap analysis works at the keyword level: which specific terms a competitor ranks for and you don't. A content gap analysis works one level up, at the topic or page level.

In practice most vendors sell the same underlying table under whichever name their product uses, so the process below applies either way. The opposite metric, keyword overlap, is the count of terms you and a competitor both already rank for; a gap analysis only looks at the terms on their side of that split.

## How to run a keyword gap analysis, step by step

Running a keyword gap analysis, or a content gap analysis at the topic level, means comparing rankings or pages against real competitors, then filtering the missing list against your own site's difficulty range instead of a borrowed number.

From there, group survivors into topic clusters and review the result every 6 to 12 months. Together, that's the standard loop: pick competitors, run a tool, filter the list, create or update content.

Here are the keyword gap analysis steps, from raw export to a short list you can actually build against:

1. **Pick 3-5 real competitors.** Choose sites that already compete with you for the same buyers, not aspirational brands three times your size. Too few competitors misses volume; too many drowns the list in noise.
2. **Run the comparison in a keyword gap tool.** Semrush, Ahrefs, Mangools and Similarweb each ship a version of this feature (more on what each one includes below). It pulls every keyword each competitor ranks for that your domain doesn't.
3. **Filter by difficulty and volume, relative to your own site.** Semrush's own 2024 walkthrough filters its demo report to keyword difficulty 0-49. Ahrefs' own 2025 walkthrough filters to keyword difficulty 30 or under with monthly search volume of 20 or more. Neither number is a rule; both are single examples run on a demo domain that isn't yours.
4. **Group survivors into topic clusters.** A single content brief can usually answer several filtered keywords at once, especially when they share the same intent and page type. Grouping and mapping keywords once you have a filtered list is its own step-by-step exercise, best handled as a distinct pass once the filter is done.
5. **Review every 6-12 months.** Shopify's own 2025 guidance recommends re-running the exercise on that cadence, since competitors publish new content and rankings shift in between.

The rule is relative, not borrowed: set your keyword difficulty ceiling to the difficulty of the terms your site already ranks on page 1 for, then filter the gap list to that same range or a little above it. A site with mostly low-difficulty page 1 rankings has no business chasing a wide ceiling copied from a vendor's demo.

Two more filters belong in the same pass: drop rows where the competitor's own ranking position is weak, since a page sitting past the second page of results is not the threat the keyword count implies, and drop your own and the competitor's brand name variants, since those are navigational searches for a company rather than content gaps.

Not every survivor will show a search volume estimate, either. Whether a zero-volume keyword is still worth targeting depends on search intent more than the number in that column.

A gap report can run past 100,000 rows once you stop filtering by an arbitrary cutoff, by Ahrefs' own count.

Checking every one of those rows for relevance isn't realistic, and it doesn't need to be: set a relevance and reachability bar tied to what your site can plausibly rank for, stop refining once a candidate clears it, and move on instead of trying to rank-order the entire export.

Ahrefs' guide draws one more distinction before you filter, two types of gap:

- **Domain-level gap** the competitor has no page on the topic at all
- **Page-level gap** they have a page, but yours ranks thinner

The filtering rule above applies to both.

If your site has no ranking history yet, this whole process has nothing to compare against. [Startup SEO keyword research with zero ranking history yet](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/startup-seo) covers what to do until you've got enough page 1 rankings to set a relative ceiling.

::figure{src="/blog/figures/keyword-gap-analysis-1.svg" alt="Semrush and Ahrefs keyword gap filters compared: Semrush’s own example uses KD 0 to 49, Ahrefs’ own example uses KD 30 or under with volume 20 or more." caption="Two vendors, two different example filters for a keyword gap analysis: neither is a universal rule." width="720" height="225"}

## Why a good-looking row in the report can still be a wasted one

A keyword gap report row's keyword count and traffic estimate describe its size. They say nothing about whether it's relevant.

The row still needs a manual check before it counts as an opportunity.

Ahrefs' own 2025 walkthrough shows a real example: a competing page ranking for 120 keywords the example site didn't, worth an estimated 2,187 monthly visits. By the raw numbers, it looked like the best opportunity on the report. But that walkthrough discarded the row after a manual look showed the 120 keywords weren't relevant to the business.

Divide the two published numbers and the row's real story shows up. Split 2,187 visits across 120 keywords and you get about 18.2 visits per keyword on average, a long tail of small, disconnected terms rather than one concentrated opportunity. That spread is exactly why the manual read caught what the summary numbers didn't.

The keyword count and the traffic estimate on any gap report row describe how big it is, never whether it fits your business. Before a row becomes a content brief, check what the actual keywords are asking about. How many there are, or what they're worth on paper, comes second. Once a keyword clears that check, [how to rank higher on Google once the keyword is worth it](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/how-to-rank-higher-on-google) picks up from there.

## What each major tool actually includes

Semrush, Ahrefs, Mangools and Similarweb each ship a keyword gap tool, but the data inside each row differs by vendor: CPC, refresh frequency, competitor count and access tier all vary.

| Tool | What its own page says it includes | Free access |
|---|---|---|
| Semrush (Keyword Gap tool) | Groups missing keywords into clusters via its Keyword Strategy Builder; tracks ranking changes afterward with Position Tracking | Not documented on its own page |
| Ahrefs (Content Gap tool) | Filters by keyword difficulty and volume; flags when the export needs refining past 100,000 rows | Not documented on its own page |
| Mangools (KWFinder Keyword Gap Analysis tool) | Includes PPC and CPC data alongside keyword metrics | Free, no paid plan required |
| Similarweb (Keyword Gap Analyzer) | Traffic share, search volume, CPC, rank and SERP features per keyword, refreshed regularly across several competitor sites and countries at once | Free trial |
| SE Ranking | Offers a keyword and competitor gap comparison feature, named only; no verified feature detail on its own page | Not documented on its own page |

Read by outcome: Semrush pushes you toward clustering and ongoing tracking once you're past the filter step. Ahrefs is explicit about when the export gets unwieldy. Mangools and Similarweb both fold in paid-media data that the other two treat as a separate report. Similarweb's own page also states a refresh cadence and a competitor-count limit, a level of detail the other three pages don't spell out.

Whichever tool you use, the filter fields it ships are still just fields. Set the actual ceiling from your own rankings, the way step 3 above describes, rather than from the number the tool's walkthrough happens to use.

Mangools' own page calls its keyword gap tool free outright, with no paid plan required; Similarweb offers a free trial instead. The other tools above don't document free access on their pages. If you want to explore keyword ideas before committing to a paid tool, a free keyword research tool for the ideation side covers that ground separately.

None of these tools measure whether your content shows up inside an AI answer, either, which is a different kind of visibility gap. [The best LLM SEO tool list, for when the gap work is AI visibility and not rank data](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/best-llm-seo-tools) covers that separately.

## Do you need a keyword gap analysis template?

A keyword gap analysis template, or a content gap analysis template if you're comparing topics instead of keywords, is just a spreadsheet that holds five exported columns:

- **Keyword** the exact ranking term
- **Competitor** which site ranks for it
- **Position** their rank on the SERP
- **Volume** the monthly search estimate
- **KD** the keyword difficulty score

It works the same whether it's saved as a Google Sheet, an Excel file or a PDF.

The format doesn't change the lesson from the section above. A template with all five columns filled in still can't tell you whether the 120-keyword row from that example was worth pursuing. That's a manual read, not a column you can add to the sheet.

Once you're pulling from the template regularly, [an SEO report template that already has a spot for competitor gaps](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/seo-reporting) keeps the output in the same report your team already reviews.

## Can ChatGPT (or another AI tool) do a keyword gap analysis for you?

ChatGPT can't run a keyword gap analysis on its own. It has no live connection to cross-domain rank-tracking data.

That means it can only cluster, prioritize or summarize an export a keyword gap tool already produced.

Feed it the filtered list from step 3 above and it's genuinely useful: grouping keywords into clusters, drafting content angles, or prioritizing which cluster to write first. Ask it to generate the list from scratch, though, and it can only guess at what a competitor ranks for.

It doesn't have access to live position data the way Semrush, Ahrefs, Mangools or Similarweb do. That's a general limit, not specific to gap analysis: [our LLM optimization guide covers what a chat model can't fetch on its own](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/llm-optimization-guide).

Picking competitors, running a tool, filtering the list and creating content is the easy part. What decides whether the exercise pays off is the filter you set relative to your own site, the manual read on the rows that look biggest, and knowing an AI chat tool picks up after the export instead of replacing it.

Run the process once end to end. Build against a short, defensible list this quarter instead of trying to fix everything the report found.

## FAQ

### What is a keyword gap report?

A keyword gap report is the exported list a keyword gap tool produces: the keywords a competitor ranks for that your site doesn't, usually with position, volume and difficulty columns attached to each row.

### Is there a free tool for a keyword gap analysis between two URLs?

Not every one. Mangools' own page describes its keyword gap comparison as free, with no paid plan required. Similarweb offers a free trial instead of ongoing access. Semrush, Ahrefs and SE Ranking gate their comparison feature behind a paid plan and don't document free access on their pages.

### What are the four types of gap analysis?

That's a general business-strategy term, product, market, competitive and distribution gaps, distinct from the SEO sense of a keyword gap analysis. It's a different framework, applied to a different question.

### What's the biggest mistake teams make with a gap analysis?

Trusting a report row's keyword count and traffic estimate without the manual relevance check described above. A row can look like the biggest opportunity on the page and still turn out to be keywords that don't fit the business.

### Will a keyword gap analysis help with content ideas?

Yes. The grouped, filtered survivors from the process are the raw material for a content brief, the "create or update content" step every gap analysis guide ends on, with the filtering judgment above added in front of it.

### What is the "entity gap"?

It's a different diagnostic from a keyword gap. Instead of comparing which keywords you rank for, it compares which named entities and attributes a competitor's content covers that yours doesn't. The entity-level version of a content gap is a related but separate mechanism, worth knowing by name since it doesn't touch keyword-level rankings at all.