Capture Competitor Keywords with Semrush Keyword Gap Tool

Semrush Keyword Gap is an analytical tool that shows which keywords your competitors are gaining traffic from through Google Ads and organic search, while highlighting the keywords you may be missing out on. To capture the keywords your competitors are bidding on, you input your domain and 1-4 competitor domains into the tool, select the Paid Search tab, filter for common and missing keywords, and then identify potential opportunities for your campaign based on search volume, cost-per-click, competition level, and user intent.

This method is particularly valuable for businesses that want to avoid wasting their Google Ads budget. The keywords your competitors are investing in are often search queries that have been tested for conversion potential. Of course, it’s not always right to directly copy every competitor keyword; the goal is to analyze the areas where your competitors are visible and to plan your own bids, landing pages, and budget more intelligently. In this guide, we will walk you through step-by-step how to use the Semrush Keyword Gap tool to find competitor advertising keywords, what metrics to focus on, and how to translate the data you gather into an actionable PPC plan.

What is Semrush Keyword Gap and How is it Useful in Advertising Analysis?

Semrush Keyword Gap is a competitive analysis tool that compares the keyword profiles of multiple domains side by side. While the tool is primarily known for SEO, it can also be used to examine the keywords your competitors are bidding on with Paid Search data. This way, you can see not only which keywords your competitors rank for organically but also which keywords they are attempting to gain advertising visibility for.

For instance, let’s say you are a web hosting company. You might wonder whether your competitors are advertising on keywords like web hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS server, domain registration, or SSL certificates. By adding your own domain and your competitors’ domains in Semrush Keyword Gap, you can view a separate list of keywords that you are not advertising on but that your competitors are. This list can serve as a strong starting point for new campaign groups, ad texts, and landing page needs.

It’s important to note that the tool does not directly access your competitors' Google Ads accounts. Semrush provides analysis based on observed ad visibility, keyword data, and estimated metrics from search results. Therefore, the data serves as strategic direction; final decisions should be evaluated alongside conversion data from your own Google Ads account.

Why Should You Monitor the Keywords Competitors are Advertising On?

In digital marketing, another resource as crucial as budget is time. Conducting keyword research from scratch, structuring a campaign, testing, and finding high-converting queries can take weeks. Analyzing competitor advertising keywords accelerates this process because you can see which queries active brands in the market are allocating budget to.

The main benefits of tracking competitor advertising keywords include:

• Identifying opportunity keywords: Keywords that you are not advertising on but that your competitors are consistently visible for can present new campaign opportunities.
• Reducing budget waste: By identifying overly expensive, low-intent, or overly generic keywords in advance, you can be more selective.
• Improving your messaging: By observing which product advantages competitors are highlighting, you can write stronger ad texts.
• Identifying landing page needs: If competitors are advertising in a specific service category, you may need a conversion-focused page for that category.
• Enhancing SEO and PPC alignment: Valuable keywords in advertising can also be incorporated into your long-term content strategy.

For example, in the hosting sector, keywords like buy domain, cheap hosting, corporate email, and SSL certificate prices carry different intents. Some indicate direct purchasing intent, while others may be in the comparison stage. Seeing which keywords your competitor is advertising on helps you determine how to reach users at different stages. During this process, you can plan to direct users to related product pages such as Web Hosting Packages, Domain Lookup and Registration, SSL Certificate Solutions to strengthen your relevant product pages.

Preparation Before Starting the Analysis: Choose the Right Competitors

The quality of your Semrush Keyword Gap analysis depends on the accuracy of the competitors you choose. Not every major brand is a direct competitor. For example, the advertising strategy of an international technology giant is not the same as that of a company focused on providing services to SMEs in a local market. Therefore, when making comparisons, you should select competitors that have similar target audiences, product categories, and pricing positions.

Practical criteria you can use when selecting competitors

• Do they sell the same product? Choose companies that actually offer the same service rather than sites that simply gain blog traffic.
• Are they targeting the same market? For campaigns targeting Turkey, competitors that advertise in Turkish or that are visible in Turkey are more meaningful.
• Are they of a similar scale? While brands with very large budgets can serve as references, mid-sized and closely scaled competitors are more realistic for one-to-one comparisons.
• Are they actively advertising? Sites that lack ad visibility in Semrush or Google search results are weaker for PPC comparison.
• Are their landing pages strong? It’s important to consider not only the keywords a competitor is advertising but also which page they direct users to.

A practical approach is to choose 1 main competitor, 2 similarly scaled competitors, and 1 market leader. This way, you can see both accessible opportunities and the upper limits in the market. For instance, if you are a WordPress hosting provider, you should include competitors that highlight topics like WordPress performance, LiteSpeed, backups, security, and support, not just general hosting firms. At this point, having a strong technical infrastructure also affects ad conversion; WordPress Hosting solutions can directly contribute to campaign performance for a fast-loading site and reliable hosting.

How to Find Competitor Advertising Keywords with Semrush Keyword Gap?

Using Semrush Keyword Gap is technically straightforward; the true value lies in applying the filters correctly and interpreting the resulting keywords based on your business objectives. The following steps provide an actionable workflow, especially for teams looking to create a PPC campaign or expand an existing Google Ads account.

1. Add your domain and competitors

Open the Keyword Gap tool in your Semrush account. Enter your domain in the first box and your competitors' domains in the other boxes. You can compare at the root domain, subdomain, or specific URL level. For general PPC opportunities, the root domain is usually sufficient; however, if you want to analyze a specific category page of a competitor, URL-based analysis may be more meaningful.

For example, if your domain is hostingexample.com and your competitors are competitor1.com, competitor2.com, and competitor3.com. If your goal is to examine only VPS ads, you may want to analyze the competitor’s VPS page specifically. This way, you can quickly reach product-focused queries rather than general brand keywords.

2. Choose the correct country and database

If you are advertising in the Turkish market, it’s crucial to set your country or database selection to Turkey. Data from different countries may be misleading in terms of CPC, competition, and search volume. For example, the cost per click for the keyword VPS in the US market might differ significantly from that in Turkey. Likewise, user intent varies between English and Turkish searches.

3. Switch to the Paid Search tab

The Keyword Gap screen may contain different data types such as organic, paid, or PLA. To capture the keywords your competitors are advertising on, you should select the Paid Search section. This tab helps you analyze the keywords for which competitors have gained paid search visibility.

4. Use the Missing, Weak, and Untapped filters

Some of the most valuable filters in Semrush Keyword Gap are the Missing, Weak, and Untapped options. Missing marks the keywords where your competitors are visible, but you are not. Weak shows the keywords where your visibility is weak compared to competitors. Untapped helps you capture opportunities where at least one competitor is strong, and you have yet to evaluate.

The first area to look at in an advertising strategy is typically the Missing keywords. This list can reveal potential queries that are not present at all in your campaign account. However, it’s not always right to advertise on every keyword in the Missing list. You should first check for relevance, intent, CPC, and landing page suitability.

5. Filter metrics according to your business objectives

After obtaining the list, examine metrics such as search volume, CPC, competition, position, traffic estimate, and number of results. A high-volume keyword is not always the best opportunity. Sometimes, long-tail keywords with a search volume of 100-300 per month and high purchasing intent can be more profitable. For example, while the keyword hosting is broad and competitive, keywords like corporate WordPress hosting or purchasing an SSL certificate may carry clearer intent.

How to Interpret Semrush Keyword Gap Metrics?

The metrics you see in the Keyword Gap tool should not be evaluated in isolation; they should be assessed together. The table below summarizes the most commonly used metrics in PPC decisions and how they should be interpreted.

Let’s consider the table with a practical example. You noticed that your competitor is advertising on the keyword SSL certificate prices. If this keyword has medium search volume, reasonable CPC, and commercial user intent, it is a good candidate for the campaign. However, instead of directing the same user to a general homepage, you should guide them to a landing page where they can compare SSL products, view prices, and examine trust factors. At this point, your SSL Certificate page plays a crucial role in ad performance.

Don’t Just Copy Competitor Keywords: Establish a Prioritization Model

A common mistake is to directly transfer the keywords from the Keyword Gap list into the Google Ads account. This approach can drain your budget, lower your quality score, and weaken your conversion rate. Instead, use a simple prioritization model that scores each keyword.

Example of a 5-point opportunity score

• Relevance: If it is directly related to your product or service, give it 1 point.
• Commercial Intent: If it carries conversion signals like purchase, price, registration, setup, give it 1 point.
• Reasonable CPC: If the cost per click aligns with your acquisition cost, give it 1 point.
• Landing Page Ready: If you have a fast, secure, and clear page that aligns with the keyword, give it 1 point.
• Competitor Consistency: If multiple competitors or the same competitor have been visible for a long time, give it 1 point.

You can place keywords that score a total of 4-5 points into your first test group. Keywords scoring 2-3 points may require improvements in landing pages or bids first. Keywords scoring 0-1 points can be added to the negative keyword list or monitoring list for now. This model is simple but can make a significant difference, especially for teams working with limited budgets.

Transforming into a Google Ads Campaign: An Actionable Workflow

After completing the Keyword Gap analysis, you need to convert the data into a campaign. Otherwise, the report will remain just a nice-looking table. The workflow below can be used for transitioning from analysis to live campaigns.

1. Group keywords by intent

Classify keywords into product, problem, price, comparison, and non-branded general queries. For example, web hosting prices, buy hosting, and fast web hosting can all belong to the same campaign; however, domain lookup or SSL installation should be split into different campaign groups. The clearer the grouping, the greater the alignment between ad text and landing page.

2. Choose match types carefully

In initial tests, exact match and phrase match yield more controlled results. Broad match can quickly consume your budget if sufficient negative keywords and conversion data are not present. For instance, using the keyword hosting as a broad match can trigger queries with varying intents like free hosting, game hosting, or what is hosting. Therefore, starting with variations that have high purchase intent is healthier in the initial phase.

3. Create a negative keyword list from the start

As important as the keywords derived from competitor analysis are the keywords you do not want to advertise on. Words like free, crack, free of charge, lesson, example, internship, job postings can lead to budget waste in many sectors. In the hosting sector, users searching for free web hosting may not be ready to purchase premium services. Adding these keywords to the negative list before the campaign begins can provide efficiency from the outset.

4. Strengthen the landing page experience

No matter how good the ad keyword is, a slow or untrustworthy landing page can lower conversion rates. If the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, if the mobile experience is weak, or if pricing information is unclear, clicks may go to waste. For sites that will receive ad traffic, a fast hosting infrastructure, SSL security, clear call-to-action buttons, and a simple form structure are critical. Therefore, before the campaign, it is important to review technical aspects like Fast Web Hosting, Corporate Hosting, and Website Security with SSL.

Concrete Example: Keyword Gap Analysis in the Hosting Sector

Let’s assume a hosting company has a monthly Google Ads budget of 30,000 TL. The company sells web hosting and WordPress hosting packages, but receives less traffic on VPS, domain, and SSL. When examining three competitors in the Semrush Keyword Gap analysis, the following keyword groups stand out: WordPress hosting prices, buy domain, purchase SSL certificate, rent VPS server, and corporate email hosting.

When evaluated based on opportunity score, the keyword WordPress hosting prices receives a score of 5 because it is directly related to the product, has high purchasing intent, the landing page is ready, and two competitors are regularly advertising. The keyword purchase SSL certificate scores 4; it could be a good test candidate if the landing page is improved. Rent VPS server may be left for the second phase depending on the company’s stock, support, or infrastructure priorities.

In this scenario, instead of spending the entire budget on a single keyword, three test campaigns could be set up: 50% WordPress hosting, 30% SSL certificate, and 20% buy domain keywords. Click-through rates, conversion rates, costs, and search term reports are monitored during the first 14 days. After 30 days, budget increases are made for campaigns with conversion costs below the target; low-quality queries are added to the negative list.

What Can Be Learned from Competitors for Ad Text and Landing Page?

Semrush Keyword Gap shows you keyword opportunities; however, analyzing ad text and landing pages is also essential for a successful campaign. If competitors are advertising on the same keyword, examine what promises they are using in search results. For example, phrases like free transfer, 24/7 support, NVMe disk, LiteSpeed, backups, money-back guarantee, or instant setup can influence user decisions.

The goal here is not to copy competitor texts but to understand the expectations in the market. If all competitors emphasize speed, you should also support your speed advantage with technical evidence. For instance, you could mention server location, NVMe storage, CDN compatibility, or caching features. If competitors emphasize pricing, you can highlight overall value: elements like security, support, backup, and an easy management panel make price comparisons fairer.

How to Use SEO and PPC Together?

The keywords your competitors are bidding on provide data not just for Google Ads but also for your SEO content strategy. If many competitors are advertising a keyword, it may have commercial value. In this case, you can not only launch an ad campaign but also create related category pages, blog content, or comparison guides.

For example, while starting an ad campaign for the keyword WordPress hosting prices, you could also prepare a guide on what to consider when choosing WordPress hosting. For the keyword buy domain, you could create content discussing domain extensions, brand protection, and DNS management. This way, you gain traffic through PPC in the short term while building organic visibility in the long run. Linking relevant product pages like Domain Record, WordPress Hosting, and VPS Server from these contents strengthens both user journey and on-site authority.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The Keyword Gap analysis is powerful, but if misinterpreted, it can lead to budget loss. Knowing the most common mistakes helps you achieve healthier results from your analysis.

• Assuming every competitor keyword is valuable: Not every keyword your competitor is advertising on is profitable. They may be losing money on that keyword.
• Uncontrolled entry into brand keywords: Advertising on competitor brand names requires caution from legal and quality score perspectives. Policies should be adhered to.
• Looking only at CPC: While a low CPC may seem attractive, it is inefficient if there is no conversion intent.
• Neglecting the landing page: If the keyword message is inconsistent with the page, quality score and conversion rates drop.
• Not adding negative keywords: If search terms are not regularly cleaned, the budget may go to low-intent queries.
• Making decisions with a short testing period: Closing a keyword based on a few clicks may be erroneous. Sufficient impressions and clicks are required for meaningful data.

30-Day Action Plan

To achieve real results from the Semrush Keyword Gap analysis, it’s helpful to tie the process to a calendar. The following 30-day plan offers a workable framework for small and medium-sized businesses.

Days 1-3: Identify Competitors and Goals

Select 3-4 competitors, clarify your target product categories, and note your current Google Ads performance. Determine your target conversion cost and monthly testing budget.

Days 4-7: Conduct Keyword Gap Analysis

Gather Paid Search data, export Missing and Untapped keywords. Clean irrelevant keywords and create an initial list based on opportunity score.

Days 8-12: Campaign Structuring

Divide keywords into ad groups, select match types, prepare a negative keyword list, and review landing pages.

Days 13-20: Test Launch

Launch campaigns with a low and controlled budget. During the first days, particularly monitor the search terms report and quality score signals.

Days 21-30: Optimization

Increase budget for converting keywords, add inefficient queries to the negative list, conduct A/B tests on ad texts, and implement small improvements on landing pages.

Conclusion: Turn Competitor Data into Smart Tests for Advantage

Semrush Keyword Gap is an effective tool for discovering the keywords your competitors are bidding on and strengthening your PPC strategy with data. For the best results, you should select competitors accurately, evaluate Paid Search data alongside intent and cost metrics, and transform keywords into a controlled testing plan rather than copying them directly.

Remember: Advertising success comes not only from the right keywords but also from a fast and reliable website, clear offers, strong landing pages, and regular optimization. If you want to gain better efficiency from your campaigns, you can explore Hostragons’ hosting, domain, and SSL solutions, and calmly plan the structure that suits your needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Semrush Keyword Gap show competitors' Google Ads accounts?

No. Semrush Keyword Gap does not access competitors' Google Ads accounts. It analyzes the keywords for which competitors have gained paid search visibility based on search results and estimated data sources.

Should I advertise on every keyword my competitor is advertising on?

No. Each keyword should be evaluated based on relevance, commercial intent, CPC, competition, and landing page suitability. Only keywords that align with your business objectives should be tested.

How many competitors should be compared in Keyword Gap analysis?

Generally, 3-4 competitors are sufficient. Selecting one market leader, two similarly scaled competitors, and one niche competitor provides a balanced analysis.

Is Semrush Keyword Gap more beneficial for SEO or PPC?

It is beneficial for both. The organic tab helps you see SEO opportunities, while the Paid Search tab shows the keywords competitors are advertising on and PPC opportunities.

How often should I analyze competitor advertising keywords?

In highly competitive sectors, monthly analysis is recommended. In less competitive markets, checking every 2-3 months may be sufficient to capture new opportunities.