Making better use of organic search is a cost-effective technique for generating leads and sales that is especially desirable for businesses where there is pressure on media budgets.
Gap analysis for SEO is a technique I developed many years ago when Google Search Console data showing the keywords driving visits to your site first became available. I have since extended it to use Google Analytics 4 Landing page reports to assess gaps where organic visits are arriving on your site through time as outlined at the end of this article.
Through 2024 and 2025 the growing importance of Generative AI and increase in Zero-clicks caused by Google's AIO Overviews have caused many to question the importance of SEO, but the ongoing value of organic search is suggested by this recent research showing that organic search is the top media channel for large businesses and still accounts for over one quarter of all website visits. Of course, if you get it right, it can be higher still, for example, for Smart Insights it accounts for around 60% of all of our sessions.
This insight is taken from the 2025 Contentsquare Digital Experience Benchmarks which is a good quality source. Their report is based on website interactions for their 6,000 largest clients using their analytics solution based on a combined 90 billion sessions and 389 billion page views. Their customers are from a range of sectors including Retail, Financial Services, Telecom,Travel & Hospitality, B2B and Public Sector.
Given the potential of organic search to drive new business at low cost, being able to benchmark how effective your SEO is against your competitors is essential to get a baseline from which to improve.
While marketers have and still do use rank position checking tools like Moz, SEMRush and RankRanger to show the ranking positions for the keywords they are targeting, what you really want to know is how many visits (and so potential sales) you are attracting to your site. This can then be shown as a share of the total demand for products and services based on the consumer intent, i.e. the type and number of searches by those looking for new products and services. The Google Ads Keyword Planner is great for gaining an idea of the number of searches for different keywords, but it doesn’t help you readily compare to the number of actual visits you’re receiving to your site. This is where you need an SEO gap analysis.
An SEO gap analysis helps you review your market share of consumer searches for products and services you offer by comparing the number of searches performed for the keywords you are targeting against the number of visitors you get to your site for these keywords through natural search in the organic search engine listings”.
Where there is high demand for products or searches indicated by the number of searches, but you have a relatively low share of visits to your site from search this is a ‘gap’ that you need to understand and review techniques to improve the number of SEO visits.
Going way back, I first talked about this approach when I wrote the first edition of the Econsultancy SEO Best practice guide in 2006, explaining that it was helpful to perform an analysis of demand or intent for different keyphrases compared to how many visits and conversions SEO was delivering for these phrases.
Gavin Llewellyn has explained the insight this gives for SEO in his tutorial. Gavin also described the process, but I’ll give a quick summary here to help members who have downloaded our SEO gap analysis template which makes it quicker and easier for gap analysis if you’re not an Excel whizz!
Step 1. Check you have access to the Google Search Console data in your Google Analytics
Visit the Search Engine Optimization, Queries menu under the Acquisition menu options as shown below. If you see this message you need to associate Google Analytics with Google Search Console - article updated for GA4.
Step 2. Access and export the queries data into Excel format
Use the Export menu to create a spreadsheet .xlsx import when viewing the keyword queries, this screengrab shows a summary of our keywords related to our race planning framework.
Step 3. Import the Excel data into the spreadsheet you are using for gap analysis
You will want to paste the entire worksheet labeled “Dataset1” by Google Analytics on export into your spreadsheet.
Step 4. Perform an “exact match” gap analysis
This involves comparing the actual number of visits to your site for different keywords you are targeting (column B) against the total number of searches (impressions) measured as an exact match (column C). Conditional formatting enables you to quickly review where there is an opportunity to improve position (column E) or clickthrough rate (share of search in column F).
Step 5. Perform a “keyword includes” gap analysis
I also recommend that a gap analysis can involve a review of individual keywords you are attracting visits across a series of key phrases. I think this is powerful since you can quickly analyze how good your visibility is for head terms (such as product categories) or long-tail search terms (such as reviews or detailed product features) you are targeting as shown in this example for different products:
I hope you find this article prompts you to perform a gap analysis or ask your SEO provider about it. If you know your way around Excel it’s quick to create and I know many agencies and consultants have their owns versions. Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions or observations based on how you tackle gap analyses!
Download our premium member resource – SEO gap analysis Excel spreadsheet
Use this spreadsheet to compare the actual number of visits to your site for different keywords you are targeting against the total number of searches (impressions) measured as an exact match. Conditional formatting enables you to quickly review where there is an opportunity to improve position or clickthrough rate (share of search).
Access the SEO gap analysis Excel spreadsheet
While it's really useful to know which search terms are effective in driving visitors to your site, the analysis above doesn't give the complete picture since it doesn't show where these visits are arriving. However, Google Search Console and GA4 does provide this data, so I later developed a complementary analysis spreadsheet to show where organic visits arrive on your site and review how this varies through time.
Content-led SEO gap analysis is a powerful technique since you can review the effectiveness of your SEO each month and compare which organic landing pages are generating more and fewer visits. Where the SEO is declining for landing pages, you can then take remedial action based on information in GSC on which keywords are driving visits to each page or group of pages.
Our content audit gap analysis template compares website landing page visits taken from Google Analytics 4 against key conversion outcomes, such as lead and sale between two periods. The aim of the template is to highlight pages that have opportunities to improve visits and leads since they are significant or are an area you want to develop for your brand. We mainly use this tool on a year-on-year basis so we can see the deltas for how organic visits have varied over a long time frame, but we also use this tool to assess short-term changes, which might have been caused by an algorithm update, for example.
Download our premium member resource – GA4 content audit gap analysis template
Review how content effectiveness varies through time by analyzing website visits from Google Analytics 4 against key conversion outcomes. The template is built as a Google Sheet to make it easy for you to copy and customize for your business and integrate with your GA4 account, using the free plugin Magic Tools.
Access the GA4 content audit gap analysis template
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
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