Competitor Keyword Analysis is the practice of studying which keywords rival apps rank for to find high-value terms you're missing — the basis of a keyword gap analysis.
Competitor keyword analysis starts from a simple insight: your closest rivals have already done expensive testing about what works in your niche, and their rankings are public. By pulling the terms a set of competitors rank for and comparing them to yours, you surface a keyword gap — valuable phrases with proven demand that your competitors capture and you don't yet. Those gaps are often the fastest wins because the relevance is already validated by the market.
It works in the other direction too. Terms where you rank and competitors don't are positions to defend, and terms everyone clusters on reveal where the fight is too crowded to be worth it. Done regularly, this analysis turns a guesswork keyword list into a prioritized map of where you can realistically take share.
Example
A budgeting app finds three rivals all rank for "subscription tracker" — a term it never targeted; adding it closes the gap and opens a new stream of high-intent installs within weeks.