Level: Advanced
A gap matrix compares your keyword coverage against several competitors simultaneously, rather than just one, revealing patterns a single-competitor comparison would miss.
The Excel Technique
With your own keywords and each competitor's keywords in separate columns, a matrix using COUNTIF against each competitor column shows, for every keyword, exactly which competitors rank for it and which don't — including cases where all three competitors cover a term you're missing entirely.
Example Scenario
Building the matrix across four competitors reveals nine keywords that all four rank for and you don't — a much stronger signal of genuine, validated demand than a single-competitor gap would have shown on its own.
Where This Fits in Your Keyword Research Process
Combining multiple competitor exports into one clean list before building the matrix avoids formatting inconsistencies between different competitors' differently-cased or differently-formatted keyword exports.
Next step: Use Remove Duplicates (Case-Insensitive) from SeoWolf's Notepad to clean and deduplicate your four combined competitor keyword exports, catching case-mismatched duplicates between differently formatted sources before you build the multi-competitor gap matrix in Excel.