Mind the Gap: How to Size Up the Competition with Semrush Keyword Gap

 

As someone new to experiencing Semrush, I was blown away by the options available for enhancing on page search engine optimization (SEO), identifying areas of improvement through the site audit feature, the ability to monitor brand mentions across the internet, and the social media tracking and posting tools. What interested me the most, however, is how Semrush can be used to examine competitor SEO strategy. Today we’ll dive into one of the tools that I found most useful on the Competitive Research Dashboard, the Keyword Gap tool. 

What is the Semrush Keyword Gap Tool?

Keywords are essential to every digital marketing effort, as they can impact SEO strategy, advertising spend, content, and more. But do you really need to know your competitors’ keywords when shaping your own strategy? Semrush (n.d.b.) notes that “it’s important to know where you stand against your competitors so that you know where to focus your efforts. So using this tool before starting a campaign can be key.” The Keyword Gap tool allows the user to compare up to five domains, sub domains, or sub folders and highlights shared, missing, weak, strong, untapped, and unique keywords for organic, paid, and product listing ad (PLA) keywords. In addition, the Keyword Gap tool also shows the search volume of each keyword as estimated per month, the keyword difficulty, cost per click (CPC), the competition density for each keyword, the number of URLs shown in organic search results for each keyword, and the positioning in Google search engine results page (SERP) rankings of each website for each keyword. 

Strengthening SEO through Shared Keywords

Since I recently started a Semrush project analyzing West Virginia University’s marketing communications graduate degree program website (https://marketingcommunications.wvu.edu), I decided to compare the subdomain with the websites for other integrated marketing communications graduate school programs that I considered applying to, including Northwestern University (https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/imc), Georgetown University (https://scs.georgetown.edu/programs/410/master-of-professional-studies-in-integrated-marketing-communications/), Ole Miss (https://masterimc.olemiss.edu/), and Stonehill College (https://www.stonehill.edu/programs/integrated-marketing-communications/). Figure 1 shows the shared keywords from the five sites.

Figure 1

Shared Keywords

Note. Sourced from Semrush (n.d.a.)

As you can see, WVU’s marketing and communications site ranks well for a variety of shared keywords but there is still room for improvement. For example, Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the flagship program for WVU’s marketing and communications graduate school department, however, it ranks sixth for Google search engine results pages (SERPs) and behind Northwestern’s program for the term “IMC program” and fifth on Google SERPs behind both Northwestern and Georgetown for the term “masters in integrated marketing communications”. Given that both of these programs have approximately the same volume of searches each month, but the competitive density and cost per click for “IMC program” is lower, this may be something that WVU’s marketing team wants to take into account if including it its strategy. 

Capitalizing on Weak and Missing Keywords

The weak and missing keywords sections I also find very helpful, as it exposes chinks in a site’s SEO armor that may not always be apparent at first glance. For example, WVU’s site does not rank for “marketing communications degree programs” however, the four competitor sites do (Figure 2). While WVU may not choose to incorporate this term in its strategy given that the keyword only has a volume of 50 searches per month and there are over 155 million URLs that are shown for this keyword, it’s important to know that it does not currently rank for the term when competitors do. 

Figure 2

Missing Keywords

Note. Sourced from Semrush (n.d.a.)

Integrating Keywords into a Semrush Project 

Another great aspect of the Keyword Gap tool is that it lets the user select keywords to add to the Keyword Manager tool. In addition to being able to track keywords individually or in lists through the Keyword Manager tool, it also allows the user to send to additional SEMrush tools like the Position Tracking tool within a SEMrush project. This is incredibly helpful, as the Position Tracking tool provides a myriad of helpful information including pages on the website that include keywords, pages that may cannibalize each other, as well as a dashboard with the rankings distribution, estimated traffic, average position, and site visibility.

By placing the keywords into a project’s Position Tracking tool it’s easier to track the keywords over time as adjustments are made to a site’s SEO strategy. This is imperative as the user can see what aspects of the strategy are beneficial or detrimental to SEO efforts and adjust the strategy accordingly. Examining the keywords, traffic, and position for each page is made especially easy as the tool offers a section of the dashboard to top, improving, and declining webpages. 

I also appreciate that the Position Tracking tool offers a link to the actual Google SERP for each keyword, as well as an indication of additional results that relate to the keywords such as ads, reviews, videos, images, featured snippets, and keywords that correlate with search questions. This specific information can be found in the Overview tab of the Position Tracker tool.   

Concluding Thoughts

The Keyword Gap tool provides invaluable insight into not only how a site performs regarding search engine optimization, but also how competitors match up.  This information primes a savvy SEO strategist to fortify a site’s strength and also enhance a site or advertising plan where there may be SEO weaknesses. However, the Keyword Gap tool isn’t the only tool Semrush offers for competitive research. Moving forward, I’m excited to explore the Digital Advertising tool to see actual creative from competitors and details on where they advertise. I’m also looking forward to diving into the Backlink Gap tool to see which backlinks competitors use that could be potential leads. 

References:

Semrush. (n.d.a.): Keyword gap. Retrieved on April 11, 2021, from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/keywordgap/?q=marketingcommunications.wvu.edu%2F&searchType=subdomain&keywordType=organic&compareWith=medill.northwestern.edu%252Fimc%3Asubfolder%3Aorganic%7Cscs.georgetown.edu%252Fprograms%252F410%252Fmaster-of-professional-studies-in-integrated-marketing-communications%252F%3Asubfolder%3Aorganic%7Chttps%253A%252F%252Fmasterimc.olemiss.edu%252F%3Asubdomain%3Aorganic%7Cstonehill.edu%252Fprograms%252Fintegrated-marketing-communications%252F%3Asubfolder%3Aorganic&db=us

Semrush. (n.d.b.): Keyword gap. Retrieved on April 11, 2021, from https://www.semrush.com/kb/28-keyword-gap