How do you conduct a competitive keyword analysis to identify gaps and opportunities in your market?

1 Choose your competitors

The first step is to choose your competitors wisely. You don't want to waste time and resources analyzing irrelevant or unrealistic competitors. You want to focus on the ones that are similar to your business in terms of size, niche, audience, and goals. You can use tools like Google Ads or SEMrush to find out who are the top advertisers for your main keywords, and also look at organic search results to see who ranks well for them.

2 Analyze their keywords

The next step is to analyze their keywords and see what they are bidding on, how much traffic they get, and how difficult they are to rank for. You can use tools like Keyword Planner or Moz to get insights into their keyword performance, volume, and difficulty. You can also use tools like SpyFu or Ahrefs to see their exact ads and landing pages for each keyword. This will help you understand their value proposition, messaging, and offers.

3 Identify gaps and opportunities

The third step is to identify gaps and opportunities in your market based on your keyword analysis. You want to look for keywords that have high volume and low competition, or keywords that your competitors are missing or underperforming on. These are the keywords that you can target to gain an edge over your competitors and reach more potential customers. You can also look for keywords that have high competition and high cost-per-click, and see if you can optimize your ads and landing pages to improve your quality score and lower your bids.

4 Adjust your keyword strategy

The final step is to adjust your keyword strategy based on your findings. You want to prioritize the keywords that offer the most value and potential for your business, and allocate your budget and resources accordingly. You also want to monitor your competitors' changes and updates, and keep testing and refining your keywords, ads, and landing pages. A competitive keyword analysis is not a one-time task, but an ongoing process that can help you stay ahead of your market and improve your search advertising results.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?