The B2B Guide to SaaS Keyword Research That Drive Revenue

Do you find your B2B SaaS company doing keyword research the wrong way?

You’re about to unlearn a lot of things that many B2B SaaS companies are stuck with in their SaaS keyword research.

You’ll stop chasing search volume and copying what your competitors rank for.

Even better, you’ll stop celebrating traffic wins that never turn into demos, trials, or closed deals.

This is the position most SaaS companies find themselves in.

And they wonder at the end of a timeline (say, six months): Why does SEO feel broken?

The problem isn’t SEO.

You have a broken strategy.

That said, SaaS keyword research is not about finding the most popular words on the internet. Rather, it’s about finding the exact words your buyers type when they are trying to solve a problem your product fixes.

That is a different goal. And it requires a very different process.

This guide will show you how to do it right: from building a keyword strategy and mapping keywords to your funnel, to finding BoFU terms, zero-search-volume keywords, and knowing which tools to use.

Table of Contents

Why Most SaaS Companies Pick the Wrong Keywords

Here is what happens in a typical SaaS company that ends up selecting the wrong keywords: A founder or CMO asks an SEO to “find good keywords.”

The SEO opens a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, and then filters for “high volume” and “low difficulty,” and builds a list.

He then hands the list to the SaaS startup or firm, which turns that list into a content calendar that directs how they publish content.

Now, while traffic comes in from these pieces of content, their pipeline does not grow.

This is a serious challenge.

Yet the problem is not the tool, but the goal. Is it traffic you want or revenue?

The bottom line is that traffic and revenue are not the same thing. For example, a blog post ranking for “what is CRM software” will pull thousands of visitors. But most of them would likely be students, researchers, or people nowhere near buying anything.

That’s not what you want as a B2B SaaS company. Of course, you need visitors who are actively looking for a solution. Yes, people who have a problem know they have a problem and are searching for something to fix it.

This is why your overall SEO strategy must start with the buyer, not the keyword tool. Now here’s the fact: if you are still struggling to turn organic visitors into leads, the issue often starts at the research stage before you even write a single word of content.

Understand Search Intent Before You Pick Any Keyword

Search intent is the reason someone types a query into Google. There are four types: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional intents.

Here’s an example for each of them:

Informational: “What is churn rate?”
Navigational: “HubSpot login.”
Commercial: “best SaaS analytics tools.”
Transactional: “Sign up for ChartMogul.”

Now for B2B SaaS, your highest-value keywords often fall in the commercial and transactional buckets. These are the people actively comparing solutions, reading reviews, or looking for something specific to buy or try.

Does that mean you should ignore informational keywords? Of course, not. While you also need them, you need to understand which stage of the funnel each keyword serves and map your content accordingly.

With that in mind, here’s a simple mental test to ponder. If someone typed a keyword into Google, could it be that they are close to buying? If your answer is “yes,” you should know such a keyword belongs in your priority list.

On the other hand, if your prospect’s intent behind typing a keyword is just to learn, it’s an indication that it belongs in your awareness content. And yes, you should link to pages that move your prospect closer to a decision.

SaaS Keyword Strategy: Building a Framework That Maps to Your Funnel

Most SaaS teams treat keyword research as a one-time task — find keywords, add them to a spreadsheet, and hand them to a writer. That is not a keyword strategy. That is a list.

A real SaaS keyword strategy answers three questions before you touch any tool:

Who are you trying to reach? Not just “marketers” or “ops teams” — but the specific job titles that feel your product’s pain the most.
Where are they in the buying journey? Are they realizing they have a problem (top of funnel), evaluating solutions (middle), or comparing vendors (bottom)?
What do they search at each stage? The language a buyer uses changes dramatically from one funnel stage to the next. Your strategy has to reflect all three stages — not just the ones with high search volume.

Once you answer those three questions, your keyword strategy stops being a list and becomes a map. Every keyword has a destination: a specific page, a specific funnel stage, and a specific job to do.

Here is how that map looks in practice:

Funnel Stage	Keyword Intent	Content Type	Example
Top of Funnel (ToFU)	Pain-aware	Educational blog posts	“why is my SaaS churn rate high”
Middle of Funnel (MoFU)	Solution-aware	Comparison guides, use case pages	“customer success software for SaaS”
Bottom of Funnel (BoFU)	Product-aware	Competitor alternatives, pricing	“Gainsight vs Totango”

This three-tier structure is the foundation of any keyword strategy built to generate pipeline — not just page views. Everything you do in keyword research feeds into this map.

How to Do SaaS Keyword Research That Maps to Revenue

1. Start With Your ICP, Not a Keyword Tool

Before you open any tool, it’s important to get specific about your ideal customer profile (ICP). And doing this would involve writing down:

What job titles buy your product?
What problems are they trying to solve?
What do they Google when that problem gets bad enough?
What tools are they currently using that are failing them?

The good thing about this exercise is that it produces a raw list of pain points, use cases, and trigger phrases your prospects use. And guess what?

That list becomes your keyword seed list. Not only that. It reflects how your buyers think, not how SEO tools categorize the internet.

Use Keyword Tools to Expand and Validate

Now you can open one or more of your favorite tools (be it Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google), and take your seed list into them. The goal is to do these three things:

Find related keywords.

Type in each seed phrase and look at the “related searches” and “also rank for” sections. Then look for patterns in how buyers phrase their problems.

Check volume vs. intent.

A keyword with 200 monthly searches and strong commercial intent is worth more than one with 5,000 searches and weak intent. This is why you shouldn’t let volume hypnotize you.

Filter by business relevance.

Doing this would mean asking: if we ranked number one for this, would the people clicking through actually be potential customers? If your answer is a “no,” then consider removing it.

3. Map Keywords to the Funnel

Here’s where you organize your validated keywords into three tiers. And that includes:

Top-of-funnel (ToFU): These are pain-aware keywords. At this point, people are feeling a problem but not yet shopping. A typical example of a query in this tier is “why my SaaS churn rate is high?”
Middle of funnel (MoFU): These are solution-aware keywords. Queries in this tier are from people who know a type of product exists. For instance, if a prospect types “customer success software for SaaS” on Google, you can say this user is searching for a middle-of-funnel keyword.
Bottom of funnel (BoFU): These are purely product-aware keywords that people compare options for. Typical examples of bottom-of-the-funnel searches include queries like “Gainsight vs Totango” or “best customer success platform.”

Now here’s the thing: your content strategy should include all three tiers. But note your fastest path to the pipeline is often through MoFU and BoFU content.

Many SaaS companies ignore these because the search volumes for queries in these content categories often look small. You know what? That is a mistake because small volume plus strong intent beats big volume plus zero intent every time.

That’s where funnel-mapping comes in. As a process, it is the foundation of a content strategy built to generate pipeline, not just page views.

The Types of SaaS Keywords You Should Target

Problem-Aware Keywords

These are phrases buyers type when they first recognize they have a problem. Here are practical examples:

“Why is my team missing sales quotas?”
“SaaS onboarding is taking too long.”
“Customer churn is increasing.”

The unique thing about these keywords is that they signal early-stage awareness. To rank for them, you need educational content that names the problem clearly and positions your product as one path to solving it.

Category Keywords

These target people who are searching for a type of solution. Examples of category keywords include:

“Revenue intelligence software”
“B2B data enrichment tools”
“SaaS billing platforms”

That said, category keywords are competitive, but they are worth targeting because the searcher already knows what kind of product they need. In other words, they are shopping, not just learning.

Comparison and Alternative Keywords

These are some of the most valuable keywords in B2B SaaS:

“Best [category] tools for [use case]”
“[Competitor] alternatives”
“[Your product] vs [Competitor]”

People searching these queries are close to a decision. They are evaluating options. And guess what? You can influence their choice directly if you rank here with honest, detailed content.

Use Case and Integration Keywords

These are highly specific and often overlooked. Here are typical examples:

“Project management software for marketing agencies”
“CRM that integrates with Slack”
“Analytics tool for subscription businesses”

You know what? These keywords have low volume but extremely high relevance. For instance, if your product solves a specific use case, you can build a page around the exact phrase a buyer would search to find that solution.

This is part of what makes product-led SEO so powerful for SaaS companies. It entails building content around what your product does, for whom, and in what context, not just broad category terms.

SaaS BoFU Keywords: How to Find and Use Conversion-Stage Terms

Bottom-of-funnel (BoFU) keywords are the most underused asset in SaaS SEO. Most teams ignore them because the search volumes look small — sometimes fewer than 100 searches a month. But this is a mistake.

A buyer typing “best project management software for marketing agencies” is not browsing. They are deciding. That single visitor is worth more to your pipeline than 500 people reading “what is project management software?”

What SaaS BoFU Keywords Look Like

BoFU keywords fall into predictable patterns:

BoFU Keyword Type	Pattern	Example
Comparison	[Product A] vs [Product B]	Asana vs Monday for remote teams
Alternative	[Competitor] alternatives	Best alternatives to HubSpot
Use Case + Category	[Category] for [industry/team]	CRM for SaaS companies
Pricing	[Product] pricing	Salesforce pricing for small teams
Review	[Product] reviews	Is Intercom worth it

How to Find Your BoFU Keywords

Mine your competitors’ ranking pages. Use Ahrefs or Semrush to see which comparison and alternative pages they rank for. These are the keywords buyers use to evaluate your space.
Check your own Search Console data. GSC always provides data for keywords you’re already ranking for or gaining impressions for. Suppose you are already ranking on page two or three for comparison-style queries; those are high-priority targets. You are close.
Talk to your sales team. These questions your prospects have before signing up are almost always BoFU keyword opportunities. Making your sales team a reliable source for discovering BoFU keywords.
Look at review platforms. G2, Capterra, and Trustpilot category pages are great places where you can find the exact language buyers use when comparing options.

How to Build BoFU Content That Converts

Building a BoFU content that converts starts with recognizing that B2B buyers search differently across their buyer journey.

This explains why generic comparisons won’t work for BoFU keywords. The way to go is to be direct, specific, and honest. Buyers at this stage have already done their research — they want help making a final decision, not a rehash of what they already know.

With this in mind, each BoFU page should:

State clearly who the page is for and what it compares to
Be factually accurate about competitors (do not trash-talk; earn trust)
Include a clear CTA — demo, free trial, or consultation
Link back to this hub page and relevant use case pages

BoFU content is where your SaaS keyword strategy pays off. Build it early, and build it well.

B2B Keyword Research: What Makes It Different

Many folks think that B2B keyword research has to follow a template or framework. In practice, it follows the same mechanics as any keyword research. The only issue is that the context is fundamentally different. And ignoring that difference is one of the most common reasons SaaS content fails to generate leads.

Multiple Stakeholders, Multiple Search Patterns

In B2C, one person searches, and the same person buys. This reality is different in B2B SaaS, where a single deal can involve a champion (the person who found you), an end user, a technical evaluator (IT or engineering), and an economic buyer (the person who approves the budget).

The truth? Each of these people searches differently.

The buying cycle may start with your champion typing “best sales enablement software,” followed by an IT evaluator typing “does [product] support SSO and SOC 2.” Next, in this search journey, the economic buyer types “[product] pricing for enterprise teams” to help make a quality buying decision.

You can see the difference. It’s the reason every B2B SaaS company must embrace a complete B2B keyword research process that maps keywords to each stakeholder, not just the person most likely to find your blog.

Low Volume Does Not Mean Low Value

B2B SaaS markets are often small by definition. A tool built for FinTech compliance teams is not trying to reach millions — it is trying to reach a few thousand decision-makers globally. Keywords in these niches will always look “low volume” by traditional standards.

Now, this is not a problem. It is the reality of B2B.

Imagine a keyword with 50 monthly searches from CFOs at financial services companies versus a keyword with 10,000 searches from a general audience. Which do you think is worth the time, effort, and investment? The one with 50 monthly searches coming from a qualified audience. Exactly, what your SaaS company or startup needs.

Job Title and Role-Based Targeting

B2B keyword research should include job-title-aware keywords. These include phrases like:

“SEO strategy for SaaS marketing teams”
“onboarding software for customer success managers”
“analytics for revenue operations leaders”

Often, keywords like these signal role-specific intent. This is why building content around them positions your product as the solution for a specific type of buyer, which in turn shortens the sales cycle and increases conversion rates.

Don’t Fear Zero Search Volume Keywords in SaaS

Most SEOs skip keyword that shows zero monthly searches in Ahrefs or Semrush. But as far as B2B SaaS is concerned, that is often the wrong call.

Often, zero search volume (ZSV) keywords appear for these two reasons:

The market is using language that the tools have not indexed yet. And this is the case because emerging product categories, new compliance regulations, and niche use cases often generate real searches before the tools catch up.
The audience is too small for the tools to measure. For instance, a B2B niche with 500 potential buyers worldwide will rarely show meaningful volume data. But the reality is that those 500 people are still searching.

Where to Find Zero Search Volume Keywords in SaaS

Customer calls and sales transcripts:

The phrases your buyers use in conversation are often the same ones they type into Google. The wise thing to do would be to record and review them.

Google Search Console:

Google Search Console (GSC) surfaces real queries that drove impressions and clicks to your site. Usually, these queries include low-volume ones that tools miss. The way to find them is to check the Queries report under performance and filter for keywords with impressions but no ranking content.

Reddit and Slack communities:

Industry subreddits and niche Slack groups are goldmines for exact-match buyer language. Pay attention to how people phrase their problems.

G2 and Capterra reviews:

Review on these platforms contains what your potential customers care about. And one way to take advantage of these platforms is to filter reviews for your category and note the specific pain points buyers mention. Often, these phrases are what they type when frustrated enough to search.

“People Also Ask” boxes in Google:

Even for low-volume topics, Google often surfaces related ZSV questions here.

How to Prioritize ZSV Keywords

The same not every keyword with search volume is worth chasing; not all zero-volume keywords are worth targeting. The goal is to prioritize them. Here are instances or cases you should go after these keywords:

When they reflect a specific use case, your product solves it directly
When the searcher, if they exist, is almost certainly in your ICP
You can rank for them quickly (low competition, low domain authority required)
They can be addressed in a cluster post that links to a higher-volume hub page

Zero search volume keywords are often the fastest path to ranking content in B2B SaaS — precisely because your competitors have dismissed them too.

Best Keyword Research Tools for SaaS Teams

The tool does not make the strategy. However, the right tool makes the research faster and more accurate.

That said, here is an honest breakdown of the best keyword research tools for SaaS teams, with a focus on what each does best in a B2B context.

Tool	Best For	SaaS-Specific Strength
Ahrefs	Competitor gap analysis, backlink research	“Also rank for” and “Top pages” reports surface BoFU keyword opportunities from competitors
Semrush	Broad keyword discovery, intent filtering	Keyword Magic Tool with intent filter separates informational from commercial queries
Google Search Console	Finding real search queries driving your own traffic	Free, accurate, and surfaces ZSV keywords your site already gets impressions for
Keywords Everywhere	Quick inline search volume data	Browser extension showing volume and CPC as you browse competitor sites and SERPs
AlsoAsked	Mapping People Also Ask questions	Reveals exact questions buyers ask at each funnel stage — great for H2 and FAQ content
AnswerThePublic	Broad question-based keyword discovery	Useful for ToFU content ideation around problem-aware topics

Recommended Stack by Company Stage

Company Stage	Recommended Stack
Solo operator / Early-stage startup	Google Search Console + Keywords Everywhere + AlsoAsked (free or low cost)
Growth-stage SaaS	Ahrefs or Semrush + Google Search Console + AlsoAsked
Scaling content team	Full Ahrefs or Semrush + dedicated rank tracker (AccuRanker or SERPWatcher) + GSC integration

With all these tools, it’s critical to note that no tool replaces the judgment you bring from understanding your ICP. The idea is to use tools to validate and expand — not to replace — the buyer-first thinking that should anchor your entire keyword strategy.

That said, you can check out this guide on SaaS keyword analysis for a deeper dive into evaluating and organizing your findings.

Common SaaS Keyword Research Mistakes to Avoid

Several SaaS companies get stuck in these SEO mistakes:

1) Targeting only high-volume keywords.

In practice, high volume means high competition and often low intent. This is why, as a SaaS startup or firm, chasing this category of keywords may not be the best thing for your business. Beyond keyword volume, your goal should be to chase relevance first.

2) Ignoring long-tail keywords.

This stems from the first error of targeting only high-volume keywords, which are usually single or two-word phrases. But the reality is that phrases with three or more words are more specific. Also, they are easier to rank for and attract more qualified visitors.

This is why you shouldn’t dismiss them all because they get fewer searches.

3) Targeting the same keywords as enterprise competitors.

Imagine a small bookstore in your neighbourhood trying to rank for competitive keywords that online platforms like Amazon are ranking for. Doing this is like fighting a lost battle.

Likewise, if you are a Series A startup going after keywords that Salesforce dominates, you will lose. So what’s the wise thing to do SEO-wise? Find adjacent keywords that they do not prioritize. Doing this helps you own a narrower niche first.

That said, you can check out this guide on SaaS Keyword Strategy for Competitive Markets for a more detailed approach on carving out your own space in competitive markets.

4) Forgetting that keywords go stale.

One reality that most SaaS startups lose sight of is that buyer language evolves. But it’s what it is. And yes, it emphasizes the need to run a keyword audit every quarter because what worked two years ago may no longer reflect how your market talks about the problem.

5) Skipping your own search console data.

Google Search Console shows you what real people are already typing to find your site. The point is to mine this data before anything else. Beyond being free, it is extremely accurate.

Many of the most common errors in SaaS SEO hinge on keyword strategy. But if you get the foundation right, the rest of the work becomes much more effective.

How to Prioritize Which Keywords to Target First

There are a lot of talks and pieces of advice encouraging the creation and publishing of more content. But here’s the thing: not every keyword deserves a piece of content right now.

That’s where prioritizing your keywords comes in. Interestingly, you can use this “scoring framework” to decide where to focus:

Factor	Question to Ask
Business relevance	Would the searcher be a potential customer?
Search volume	Is anyone actually searching for this?
Keyword difficulty	Can we realistically rank given our domain authority?
Funnel stage	Does this move people toward a decision?
Existing content	Do we already have something close to this?

The idea is to score each keyword from 1 to 3 on each factor. And then prioritize the ones with the highest total score. Doing this keeps you focused on keywords that can actually drive the pipeline rather than keywords that look good in a report.

SaaS Keyword Research and Your Paid Strategy

Keyword research is one thing that links both search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). You probably would agree to this if you run paid search alongside organic. Simply put, the intersection between both channels is keyword research.

Often, the keywords you are testing in Google Ads tell you which phrases convert. And this data is gold for your organic strategy.

While that’s true, the long-tail keywords you rank for organically can guide where you expand your paid spend. In short, this coordination is one reason why comparing SEO and paid search for SaaS is not an either-or question.

The bottom line is that the data from each channel makes the other smarter.

What to Do After You Find Your Keywords

Keyword research is step one. But once you have your prioritized list of keywords, you need to:

Assign one primary keyword per page.

Every piece of content should target one focused keyword, while the supporting keywords can appear naturally throughout.

Write a unique title tag and meta description.

This is just part of the on-page basic SEO. The idea is to include the focus keyword early in the title. As for the meta description, you should keep it under 160 characters and make it specific.

Use the keyword in your H1.

The goal is not to force your keyword in your H1. Rather, it should appear naturally in your main heading.

Support it with H2s that reflect related queries.

Think about what else a reader would want to know after seeing your H1. Once you have a list of all that, you can then structure your subheadings around those questions.

Build internal links.

Connect your keyword-targeted content to related pages on your site. This is how you build topical authority and help Google understand the structure of your content.

Now, note that this last point matters especially if you are building out a content cluster. With this approach, every page you create links to your pillar page, the same way your pillar page should link back to each cluster page.

You know what? This is how you signal to Google that your site covers a topic in depth.

If you want to see how this fits into a broader framework, the complete SEO playbook for B2B SaaS covers how keyword strategy connects to technical execution, content production, and pipeline generation.

SaaS Keyword Research Best Practices

It’s easy to think that SaaS keyword research is a one-time task, but it’s not. It is an ongoing process that keeps your content aligned with how your buyers think and search. And this is why, before you close this guide, here is a condensed checklist of best practices to carry into your work:

Strategy

This is a principle or practice that emphasizes the need to start with your ICP, not a keyword tool
Also, it’s critical to map every keyword to a funnel stage before assigning it to a content piece.
Finally, in practice, you should build your keyword list for your SaaS business around buyer language, not industry jargon

Research

This is the next block on the foundation of strategy. With this in mind, it’s essential to use at least two tools to cross-validate volume and intent signals
Beyond SaaS research tools like Semrush and Ahrefs, you can check Google Search Console weekly because it is your most accurate source of real search data
Another thing to take note of is not to dismiss zero search volume keywords in niche B2B markets

Prioritization

You’ll always have a long list of keyword ideas, and that’s where prioritization comes in. It involves scoring keywords by business relevance, funnel stage, and ranking feasibility beyond volume alone
Most importantly, you can prioritize MoFU and BoFU keywords for pipeline impact, and then ToFU for awareness and link building
Above all, as buyer language evolves, it’s paramount to review and refresh your keyword list every quarter.

Execution

This involves implementing and optimizing pages for the keywords you’ve selected as your priority or targeted keyword list. And doing this entails assigning one primary keyword per page, and then letting secondary keywords appear naturally
Also, this would mean including the primary keyword in your title tag, H1, and at least one H2
More importantly, it’s crucial to build internal links from every cluster post back to this hub page, and vice versa

Measurement

This is part of the SaaS keyword research best practice because efforts without evaluation are baseless. For SaaS companies, this goes beyond tracking keyword rankings. It’s more about measuring what matters, which includes things like organic-influenced demos, trials, and pipeline
Google Search Console is a tool you can use to monitor impression growth for new sections you add
Ultimately, you can run a full keyword audit every six months to retire stale terms and identify emerging ones

With all that said, it’s essential to note that the goal is never traffic for its own sake. It’s to show up when the right person searches for the problem your product solves. Doing this may seem challenging at first, but if you do it consistently for your SaaS company, SEO becomes one of the most reliable revenue channels in your business.