Finding keyword gaps against a competitor
List the keywords a competitor ranks for, remove the ones your own domain already ranks for, and keep the rest that match a page you could write. In netweft that is two Ranking keywords lookups on Domain overview, a save, a tag, and a tracker on the survivors.
A keyword gap is a search term a competitor ranks for and your domain does not. It is the cheapest research there is, because somebody else has already proved the term brings traffic to a site like yours.
This playbook finds them with two lookups on Domain overview, sorts them with tags on Saved keywords, and watches them with a rank tracker.
1. Pick one competitor, not five
Choose the competitor whose pages answer the same questions as yours, not the biggest name in the market. A marketplace that outranks everybody tells you little about what a single product site can win. Record it under Competitors in the project’s context so the assistant and AI visibility compare against it too.
2. List what the competitor ranks for
On Domain overview, look up the competitor and open Ranking keywords. Each row is a keyword, its position, its search volume, its estimated traffic and the URL that ranks. A page of 200 rows holds up to 360 credits and settles for less if fewer rows come back.
Sort by Traffic. The keywords at the top are the ones sending the competitor visits today, which is a better guide than volume alone: a high-volume term at position 40 sends nothing.
3. Remove what you already rank for
Look up your own domain the same way. Any keyword on both lists is not a gap; it is a position fight, and the rank tracking history for it matters more than another lookup.
What is left falls into three groups:
| Group | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The competitor ranks in the top 10, you nowhere | a page you do not have | write it, or extend the closest page you have |
| The competitor ranks 11 to 30, you nowhere | a term nobody owns yet | cheapest to win; write it first |
| Branded or navigational for the competitor | people looking for them | skip it |
4. Expand the gaps worth a page
On Keyword ideas in the same lookup, or in Keyword research from one of the gap terms as a seed, collect the variants a single page would answer. One page usually ranks for a cluster of close terms, so plan pages, not keywords.
Check Difficulty before committing. A gap with difficulty above the difficulty of terms you already rank for is a gap for later.
5. Save, tag and track
Save the survivors and tag them, for example gap: competitor-name, so the
list stays separable from everything else in Saved keywords. Then add the
ones you are about to write for to a tracker, before the page ships, so the
history starts at “not ranking” and shows the climb. A check at the default
depth costs 40 credits per keyword per device; see
choosing which keywords to track for what a
schedule adds up to.
What it costs
Two Ranking keywords pages of 200 rows hold at most 360 credits each. The same lookup repeated within 24 hours answers from a stored copy at no cost, so going back to re-sort is free. Saving and tagging cost nothing.