Keyword gap analysis
Keyword gap analysis finds the search terms your competitors rank for on Google that your site doesn't - then filters out the junk and orders what's left by how relevant and winnable each gap is for your site, not just how big the number is.
The problem with most gap tools: sorting by search volume alone fills the list with keywords you can never win and wouldn't want to - navigational searches for other brands and off-topic terms that happen to sit in a competitor's profile. A 300,000-searches-per-month keyword that has nothing to do with your product is worth exactly nothing to you. DidYouSEO filters those out before you ever see them.
First: choose the right competitor (this decides everything)
The single biggest factor in whether your gap list is useful isn't the tool - it's which competitor you add. The instinct is to add the biggest name in your industry. Resist it. A gap analysis against a site 1,000× your size returns thousands of "gaps" that are really just that site's enormous footprint: keywords locked up by high-authority pages, brand lookups, and side topics you'd never cover.
Weak choice
The industry giant
Ranks for millions of keywords. Your gap list fills with difficulty-90 head terms and off-topic noise. Interesting to study, impossible to act on.
Strong choice
The peer on your search results pages
A site your size that already ranks where you want to. Every gap is a keyword a site like yours has proven it can win - that's a to-do list, not a wish list.
How to find peers: Google your most important keyword and note who sits at positions 4-15 alongside you - especially names you don't recognize. Those unknown sites winning your searches are your real competitors. You can also check domain ratings in bulk - a good first competitor is within roughly ±15 DR points of your own site.
1Scan the competitor's strike-distance rankings
When you add a competitor in Dashboard → Competitors, DidYouSEO pulls the keywords that domain ranks for in Google's US results at positions 4-15 - organic results only. Positions 1-3 are usually locked in; past 15 the ranking is too weak to signal a real gap. 4-15 is the "visible but not dominant" zone where a focused page can actually take the spot.
2Drop navigational junk
Searches classified as navigational - someone typing a specific website's name to get there - are excluded automatically. Nobody searching for another brand will ever click your page, so those keywords are noise no matter how large their volume looks.
3Score every keyword against your own site
DidYouSEO reads your website - homepage, sitemap URLs, and key pages - and builds a picture of the topics you cover. Each gap keyword gets a relevance score from 0 to 1: how much it overlaps with what your site is actually about. Keywords with very low relevance stay in the list but appear faded, so nothing is hidden from you - it's just honestly ranked.
4Order by real opportunity
The final order is relevance × search volume × winnability. Winnability comes from keyword difficulty (the KD badge, 0-100): green means the top 10 is realistically crackable, amber is a medium-term play, red needs serious authority first. A 5,000/mo keyword that fits your site and is easy to win ranks above a 500,000/mo keyword that is off-topic or locked up by giants.
What to do with your gap list
Work the list in this order, and give yourself permission to skip most of it - a gap list is a menu, not homework:
- Start with green KD + high relevance. These are winnable within weeks with a focused page or post. One good page per keyword cluster - not one per keyword variant.
- Group variants into one target. "bulk url check," "url checker bulk," and "bulk url tester" are one intent - one page covers all three. Chasing each variant separately splits your effort for nothing.
- Skip other brands' keywords. Terms containing a competitor's product name (with very high KD) are navigational - searchers want that brand, and the brand outranks everyone for its own name.
- Skip keywords that attract the wrong visitor. A low-difficulty keyword is only cheap if the traffic could ever become a customer. If the intent behind it doesn't match anything you offer, its KD doesn't matter.
- Save amber KD for pages you already have. Medium-difficulty gaps are best attacked by strengthening an existing relevant page - more depth, better internal links - not by creating a new thin one.
Frequently asked questions
What is a keyword gap?+
A keyword gap is a search term a competitor ranks for that your site doesn't. DidYouSEO focuses on gaps where the competitor sits at positions 4-15 on Google - visible but not dominant - because those are the rankings a focused, well-linked page can realistically take.
Why isn't the list sorted by search volume?+
Raw volume sorting buries useful gaps under junk. Competitors often rank for huge navigational queries (people typing a brand name) and off-topic terms that would never convert for you. DidYouSEO orders gaps by opportunity instead: relevance to your site, multiplied by search volume, multiplied by how winnable the keyword is.
How does DidYouSEO know a keyword is relevant to my site?+
It reads your own website - your homepage, your sitemap's page URLs, and a few key pages - and builds a vocabulary of the topics you actually cover. Each gap keyword is scored by how much it overlaps with that vocabulary. A keyword that shares no words with anything on your site scores zero and drops to the bottom, faded out.
What does the KD badge mean?+
KD is keyword difficulty, from 0 to 100 - an estimate of how hard it is to crack Google's top 10 for that term, based on the authority of the pages currently ranking. Green (under 30) means winnable soon, amber (30-59) is a medium-term investment, red (60+) is a long shot without serious site authority.
How often is keyword gap data updated?+
Every tracked competitor is rescanned automatically once a week, matching how often the underlying Google ranking data itself refreshes. You can also trigger a manual rescan from the dashboard once every 24 hours.
Should I add Ahrefs, Semrush, or another big brand as a competitor?+
Usually not as your first competitor. Sites that rank for millions of keywords produce gap lists dominated by terms that are either irrelevant to you or locked up by high-authority pages. You'll get far more actionable results from competitors roughly your size that appear on the same search results pages you do. Add a giant later if you want to study their content strategy - just read that list as inspiration, not as a to-do list.
Why does my gap list contain keywords that have nothing to do with my product?+
Because your competitor ranks for them - a gap list reflects the competitor's rankings, not your topic. Big sites especially rank for thousands of off-topic terms through free tools, blog posts, and brand-name lookups. DidYouSEO's relevance scoring fades these toward the bottom, but the cleanest fix is choosing a competitor whose entire site overlaps with your niche.
Find your keyword gaps
Add a competitor, run a scan, and get a gap list that's already filtered for relevance - no spreadsheet cleanup required.
Related: check your domain rating · pricing