Does, Should, Could Exist: The Content Strategy Most Brands Get Backwards

Every brand I work with wants to create new content. They come with ideas for blog series, video campaigns, podcast strategies, guest posting plans. They’re excited about what they could build.

And almost every one of them is making the same mistake: they’re jumping the gun.

Before you create anything new, you need to answer three questions - in order:

What DOES EXIST? (And is it working for you or against you?)
What SHOULD EXIST? (What gaps do the algorithms see?)
What COULD EXIST? (Where can you get creative?)

Most brands start at SHOULD EXIST or COULD EXIST. The smart ones start at DOES EXIST.

The Three Categories

DOES EXIST: Your Current Assets

These are your current assets - your website, your profiles, your media coverage, your directory listings. Every page that mentions your brand is either helping AI understand and recommend you, or it’s creating confusion and friction.

The work here is triage:

Clean. Fix inconsistencies, update outdated information, align messaging across sources. Every contradiction trains AI to hedge. Every outdated fact teaches AI the wrong thing.

Optimize. Your existing pages are already indexed, already crawled, already part of AI training data. Make them work harder. Add schema markup. Strengthen entity signals. Ensure they serve all three graphs - Entity, Document, and Concept.

Remove and redirect. Some pages hurt more than they help. Outdated content, duplicate pages, abandoned profiles, legacy sites that contradict your current positioning. Remove them. Redirect them. Stop the bleeding.

Why this comes first: You’ve already invested in these pages. The cost is sunk. Making them work is zero-risk - you’re not creating anything new, you’re extracting value from assets you already own. This is the ROPI principle: Return On Past Investment.

SHOULD EXIST: Strategic Gap-Filling

Once your existing assets are clean and optimized, you can identify gaps - elements of your brand that aren’t currently represented but need to be.

Three sources tell you what’s missing:

The competition. What pages do your competitors have that you don’t? Not vanity content - strategic content that positions them in discovery queries, comparison queries, and decision queries where you’re absent.

The market. What are prospects actually asking? What questions lead to your solution but don’t find your brand in the answer? What topics does your ideal customer care about where you have expertise but no presence?

The algorithms. This is where data matters. At Kalicube, we track 25 billion data points across the Algorithmic Trinity - Knowledge Graphs, LLMs, and Search Engines. We see exactly where AI mentions your competitors but not you. We see which queries should lead to your brand but don’t. We see the gaps in your entity representation that prevent AI from recommending you.

The work here is strategic gap-filling:

Pages that establish missing entity attributes
Content that positions you in comparison queries
Profiles on platforms where your competitors appear but you don’t
Ongoing strategies: guest posts on authoritative sites, YouTube videos for visual search, podcast appearances for audio discovery

Why this comes second: Gap-filling requires knowing where the gaps are. You can’t see gaps clearly until you’ve cleaned up the noise from your existing assets. And every gap you fill should connect to - not contradict - what you’ve already optimized.

COULD EXIST: Creative Multiplication

Now - and only now - you can get creative.

These are the imaginative plays. The thought leadership that doesn’t yet exist in your market. The content strategies that create new categories rather than competing in existing ones. The experimental formats that might define the next wave of discovery.

This is where you ask:

What if we created the definitive resource on [emerging topic]?
What if we launched a content series that no competitor has attempted?
What if we built tools, calculators, or interactive content that earns links and citations?
What if we established our founder/team as the go-to experts through original research?

Why this comes last: Creative content is high-risk, high-reward. It takes resources. It might not work. And if your existing assets are a mess and your obvious gaps aren’t filled, creative content has nothing to connect to. It floats in isolation, unanchored to your entity, unable to compound.

But when your foundation is solid and your gaps are filled, creative content becomes the multiplier. It’s how you go from “known” to “authoritative” to “the obvious choice.”

The Build Order Matters

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│        DOES EXIST → SHOULD EXIST → COULD EXIST           │
│                                                             │
│   ⚠️ Most brands start at SHOULD EXIST or COULD EXIST       │
│      Smart brands start at DOES EXIST                    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─────────────────┐
│  DOES EXIST  │  ← START HERE
│                 │
│  Clean          │    Risk: ZERO (assets already owned)
│  Optimize       │    Investment: Already made
│  Remove/Redirect│    Outcome: Foundation secured
│                 │
│  ROPI: Return   │
│  On Past        │
│  Investment     │
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│  SHOULD EXIST   │  ← THEN HERE
│                 │
│  Competition    │    Risk: LOW (proven gaps)
│  Market demand  │    Investment: Targeted
│  Algorithm gaps │    Outcome: Gaps filled
│                 │
│  Data-driven    │
│  gap filling    │
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│  COULD EXIST    │  ← FINALLY HERE
│                 │
│  Creative plays │    Risk: HIGHER (unproven)
│  New categories │    Investment: Significant
│  Thought leader │    Outcome: Multiplication
│                 │
│  Innovation     │
│  on solid       │
│  foundation     │
└─────────────────┘

Why most brands get this backwards:

DOES EXIST work is boring. It’s cleanup. It’s not a shiny new campaign you can present to leadership. Nobody gets promoted for “we fixed 200 inconsistencies in our directory listings.”

SHOULD EXIST and COULD EXIST work is exciting. New content. New strategies. Things you can announce, measure from zero, and take credit for.

But here’s the math: if your existing assets are working against you, new content fights uphill. Every new page you create has to overcome the confusion your existing pages generate. You’re adding water to a leaky bucket.

Fix the bucket first.

How Kalicube Sees This

When we onboard a new brand, we don’t start by asking “What content should we create?” We start by auditing what does exist.

Our 25 billion data points across the Algorithmic Trinity tell us:

Which existing pages are strengthening your entity and which are confusing it
Where AI systems see contradictions in your brand representation
Which assets are being cited and which are being ignored
What the algorithms already believe about you - accurate or not

Only then do we identify what SHOULD EXIST:

Gaps where competitors appear but you don’t
Queries where AI should recommend you but doesn’t
Entity attributes that are missing from your Knowledge Graph presence
Platforms where your audience discovers solutions but you’re absent

And only when the foundation is solid do we explore what COULD EXIST:

Creative strategies that multiply your authority
Content plays that establish new positioning
Formats that capture emerging discovery patterns

This sequence isn’t arbitrary. It’s how compounding works. Each phase builds on the last.

The Questions to Ask

For DOES EXIST:

What pages currently mention our brand?
Are they accurate? Consistent? Current?
Which ones are helping AI understand us and which are confusing it?
What should we clean, optimize, or remove?

For SHOULD EXIST:

Where do competitors appear that we don’t?
What questions does our ideal customer ask where we’re absent from the answer?
What does algorithm data tell us about gaps in our entity representation?
What ongoing strategies (guest posts, videos, podcasts) fill those gaps?

For COULD EXIST:

What content doesn’t exist in our market that we could create?
Where can we establish thought leadership rather than just compete?
What creative plays would multiply our authority once the foundation is solid?
What’s the content that makes us the obvious choice, not just an option?

The Practical Reality

Here’s what this looks like in practice for a personal brand (1 year total):

Month 1-3: DOES EXIST

Audit all existing brand mentions
Fix inconsistencies across sources
Update outdated information everywhere
Remove or redirect pages that hurt more than help
Optimize existing assets for all three graphs
Result: Clean foundation, no confusion, assets working for you

Month 4-6: SHOULD EXIST

Analyze competitive gaps with real data
Identify algorithm gaps from tracking
Create strategic content that fills specific gaps
Launch ongoing strategies (guest posting, video, podcasts)
Build presence where you’re currently absent
Result: Gaps filled, competitive parity or advantage

Month 7-12: COULD EXIST

Develop creative content strategies
Establish thought leadership positioning
Create category-defining resources
Experiment with emerging formats
Build the content that makes you the obvious choice
Result: Authority multiplication, market leadership

For businesses (SMB and Enterprise): double all timelines. The sheer size of a business’s digital footprint, combined with the complexity of stakeholders, approval processes, legacy assets, and global consistency, means businesses typically need 6 months on DOES EXIST, 12 months on SHOULD EXIST, and 12-24 months on COULD EXIST. SMBs are often slower than enterprises - fewer resources, less dedicated staff. The sequence stays the same - only the pace changes.

The Conclusion

Every brand wants to create new content. The question is whether that content will compound on a solid foundation or dissipate into noise.

DOES EXIST → SHOULD EXIST → COULD EXIST.

Start with what you have. Make it work. Then fill the gaps the algorithms show you. Then - and only then - get creative.

The brands that get this order right don’t just create content. They build compounding authority where every new piece strengthens everything that came before.

The brands that jump to SHOULD EXIST and COULD EXIST before fixing DOES EXIST wonder why their content strategies never seem to gain traction.

The foundation isn’t optional. It’s where compounding begins.

Jason Barnard is the founder and CEO of Kalicube®, the company that tracks 25 billion data points across the Algorithmic Trinity to show brands exactly what does exist, what should exist, and what could exist in their digital presence. He developed this framework as part of The Kalicube Process™ for systematic brand optimization.

Quick Reference

Phase	Work	Risk Level	Key Questions
DOES EXIST	Clean, optimize, remove/redirect	Zero (already invested)	What’s working? What’s hurting? What’s outdated?
SHOULD EXIST	Strategic gap-filling	Low (data-driven)	Where are competitors? What do algorithms show? What’s missing?
COULD EXIST	Creative multiplication	Higher (unproven)	What doesn’t exist? Where can we lead? What multiplies authority?

Build order: DOES EXIST → SHOULD EXIST → COULD EXIST
Most brands: Skip to SHOULD EXIST or COULD EXIST
Smart brands: Fix DOES EXIST first, then compound

Timelines: