What you will learn in this blog post
This simple analysis will save you hours of time doing keyword research the old way which typically involves you entering “seed keywords” and compiling and analysing keyword lists.
Instead, we’re going to use Semrush’s Keyword Gap report to analyse your website and those of your top four competitors to find “weak keywords” and “missing keywords, both of which represent opportunities to target new transactional keywords. i.e Keywords that actually generate sales for your e-commerce store.
Weak keywords – These are keywords that your website ranks lower than your competitors.
Missing keywords – These are keywords that your domain does not rank and all of your competitors do.
Because your competitors are all e-commerce stores, the terms on these reports are most likely commercial product or category keyword terms that are sales focused.
Find Keywords with Semrush Keyword Gap Analysis tool
Step 1 – Enter your site and the sites of four competitors into the Keyword Gap Tool and click Compare.
Step 2 – Select “Weak” from the Keyword Filter to export all keywords that you rank the lowest amongst your competitors
The issue here is that you have a ranking for a commercial term, but it’s low, and therefore you need to take steps to improve the ranking by either improving the page’s content or the internal and external backlinks.
Step 3 – Select “Missing” from the Keyword Filter to export all keywords that your competitors rank for, but you do not.
The idea here is that if your competitors are all ranking for these keywords and if they are direct competitors, why are you not ranking for these terms? Are you missing a product collection page or a product page? Have you titled your product or category incorrectly?
Addressing the opportunities identified in the Missing and Weak keywords report will help you start to rank for relevant commercial terms.
I recommend that you do this analysis whenever you are staring a new ecommerce website or every few months with a new set of competitors sites.
