Find the commercial content gaps your search data already points to

Two kinds of content gap

The first kind is a visibility gap: topics your competitors cover where you do not appear at all. Finding these needs external research, because your own data contains no trace of them.

The second kind is a fit gap: queries where search engines already show your site, but choose a page of the wrong type, a thin page, or the homepage doing a job a dedicated page should do. These gaps are visible in your own data, and they are often cheaper to close because some relevance already exists.

For B2B SaaS, fit gaps around commercial queries are usually the most practical place to start. Steps one to four below focus on them; the final section explains how to extend the work to visibility gaps.

Step one: build a clean, non-brand dataset

In Search Console, open the Performance report for Search results, set the search type to Web and choose a range of at least three months. Longer ranges, up to the sixteen months Search Console retains, help lower-volume sites, because commercial queries in specialist B2B categories can be sparse.

Remove brand queries with a regex filter. Add a Query filter, choose Custom (regex), select Doesn't match regex and enter your brand variants separated by vertical bars, for example: acme|acmehq|acme app|akme. Include product names and common misspellings. Search Console uses RE2 regex syntax, which does not support lookaheads, so exclusion is done with this option rather than a negative pattern.

Search Console allows one query filter at a time, and interface exports are limited to 1,000 rows. For sites with many queries, work through the intent groups in step two as separate filtered exports, then remove brand rows from each in your spreadsheet.

Step two: group queries by intent

Create a filtered view for each commercial intent group using Matches regex, and export each one. The patterns below are starting points; adjust them to the language your buyers actually use.

Expect overlap and some false matches. A query such as 'best crm pricing' matches more than one group, which is fine: assign it to whichever group describes the dominant intent when you combine the exports. Short terms can match inside longer words, so 'vs' may appear inside unrelated strings; adding a space either side of a term is a simple way to tighten it.

If a pattern seems to miss queries, check casing. Queries in Search Console are generally shown in lowercase, but prefixing a pattern with (?i) makes the match case-insensitive.

• Transactional: pricing|price|cost|plans|demo|trial|quote
• Comparison and alternatives: alternative|alternatives| vs |versus|compare|comparison|competitor
• Category evaluation: best|top|software|platform|tool|solution
• Integrations: integration|integrate|connector|plugin|api
• Audience and industry: for (startups|agencies|enterprise|small business|healthcare|finance)
• Informational, for contrast: ^(how|what|why|when|can|does|should) followed by a space

Step three: map each commercial query to its landing page

For each commercial query with meaningful impressions, find the page receiving them. Click the query in the table, then open the Pages tab. Record the URL and its type: homepage, pricing, product, solutions, integrations, comparison, blog or documentation.

This mapping is where fit gaps become visible. Work through the patterns below and note each match alongside its impressions, clicks and average position.

You can also work in the other direction. Filter by a single URL, such as a popular blog post, and review every query it receives. A post that attracts a cluster of commercial queries is often the clearest signal that a commercial page is missing or too weak to rank.

• A comparison or alternative query served by the homepage or a general blog post usually indicates a missing comparison page.
• An integration query served by a documentation or help-centre article suggests a public integration page could serve evaluators better.
• An industry or role query served by a generic product page points to a missing or thin solutions page.
• A pricing query served by a blog post about pricing strategy is an intent mismatch rather than a missing page.
• Several URLs sharing impressions for one query signals cannibalisation rather than a gap.

Step four: validate before you build

Not every gap deserves a page. Before adding anything to the plan, search the query yourself in a private browser window and look at what type of page appears at the top. If third-party lists and review sites dominate, a vendor page may struggle; if vendor comparison and solutions pages appear, the format is established.

Then check fit with your ideal customer profile and your product's genuine capabilities. A healthcare solutions page is only worth creating if you serve healthcare customers well and can say something specific and accurate about it. Thin pages created simply to capture a query tend to perform poorly and can undermine trust with the buyers who do land on them.

Finally, choose one of three actions: create a new page, improve an existing page so it matches the intent better, or consolidate competing pages into one. Record the queries, impressions and positions behind each decision, so you can compare once the change has had time to take effect.

Extending the method to gaps you cannot see yet

Search Console will not reveal commercial topics where you have no visibility at all. For those, use sources closer to the buyer: questions raised on sales calls, objections recorded in your CRM, competitors prospects mention by name, and integrations customers ask for. Each is a candidate query group you can check by searching manually and reviewing what ranks.

Once new pages are published, they enter the same loop. Search Console begins to show which queries they attract, and the fit-gap steps above can be repeated to refine them over the following months.

Free scanner or full product?