As B2B marketing grows more competitive, it’s beneficial to find every advantage you can. One area where you can gain a significant edge is through effective B2B keyword research.
You can drive organic traffic and generate high-quality leads by identifying and targeting relevant keywords.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of keyword research, help you create your keyword research strategy, and discuss the best tools you can use.
Keep in mind that keyword research can be complex and require frequent refinement. If you want to maximize results without the hassle, partner with TrioSEO.
With 10+ years of SEO expertise, we’ll craft a personalized B2B SEO strategy that generates organic traffic and attracts qualified leads.
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What is B2B Keyword Research?
B2B keyword research involves identifying keywords and phrases that target your business audience who are seeking solutions.
It analyzes search terms to understand what they are looking for and how to align your SEO strategy with their requirements.
Purpose of B2B Keyword Research
Here’s a breakdown of why B2B keyword research is crucial:
- Target the right audience: Performing keyword research ensures your marketing efforts are well spent by directing them toward the most relevant, high-intent prospects.
- Understand customer intent: Proper keyword research helps you identify what potential business clients are searching for and their specific needs or pain points.
- Guide content strategy: Finding the right keywords helps develop relevant content, improving engagement and lead nurturing.
- Improve search engine visibility: Your B2B website can rank higher in search engine results when incorporating relevant keywords. Higher visibility ensures your content is discoverable when potential clients search for related terms, increasing organic traffic to your website.
B2B Content Marketing Funnel
The B2B content marketing funnel is a framework that guides potential customers from awareness to conversion. Keyword research helps you find the correct search terms for each stage, whether top, middle, or bottom.
Find out more about this funnel below:
What is TOFU Content?
TOFU (Top of Funnel) content is about capturing the attention of businesses that might use your products or services.
TOFU content aims to attract potential leads by educating them about your industry, whether it’s about the challenges or rising trends.
Some forms of TOFU content include:
- White papers on market trends
- Industry-specific blog posts
- Webinars
- Infographics about common business issues
For your keyword strategy, you must target broad, informational keywords that reflect industry challenges or educational content.
Some examples include “benefits of cloud-based CRM systems” or “latest cybersecurity trends.”
What is MOFU Content?
The next layer in the B2B content marketing funnel is MOFU (Middle of Funnel) content, which caters to target leads who have already shown an interest in your offerings.
At this stage, your potential leads have already recognized that they’re dealing with a challenge – now it’s your job to guide them by providing valuable information that addresses their needs.
Your focus must be to showcase the value of your offerings. You can achieve that by crafting these content forms:
- Case studies demonstrating successful implementations
- Product comparison sheets
- In-depth guides on industry-specific challenges
Keywords at this stage are more solution-oriented. Sample keywords include “best project management tools for remote teams” or “how to optimize ad spend.”
What is BOFU Content?
The last stage of the content marketing funnel is BOFU content, designed to convert leads into customers. This form of content addresses your leads’ specific concerns head-on, which helps give the final push when making a purchasing decision.
You can present offers, demos, and even customer success stories at this stage.
When creating BOFU content, you must incorporate transactional keywords. These are keywords that indicate a prospect is ready to make a purchase. For example, “buy [name of software] subscription” or “request a demo of [name of software].”
Types of Essential B2B Keywords
B2B keywords aren’t just about volume. The real win is understanding intent; that’s how you go from traffic to leads, and from leads to actual customers.
1. Industry-Specific Keywords
These are highly specialized terms used within a particular field or sector. They reflect the language professionals in that space use on a day-to-day basis. Because they signal deep familiarity with the subject, they tend to attract more qualified traffic, even when search volume is lower.
2. Problem-Solution Keywords
These keywords are framed around challenges your audience is trying to solve. They typically come from people early in their buying journey who haven’t defined the exact solution they need, but know they’re facing an issue. Targeting these helps you capture attention when someone starts actively looking for answers.
3. Product and Service Keywords
These are the search terms tied directly to what you offer. They come from people who already know the product or service they need; they’re just deciding who to get it from. These are your money-makers. Match them to your core landing pages to turn intent into action.
4. Superlative and Comparison Keywords
These keywords mean the buyer’s doing their homework. They’re searching things like “best,” “vs,” or “top 10.” At this stage, your job isn’t to help. Give them the info they need to make a smart call.
5. Market-Defining Keywords
These are broad terms that define your category or industry. While they’re often competitive and vague, they’re important for establishing relevance and authority. They help search engines and users generally understand the space you operate in.
6. Customer-Defining Keywords
These keywords don’t describe your product; they describe your customer. Think “for freelancers,” “for B2B marketers,” “for ecommerce brands.” These help you speak their language and show that your solution is tailored to their specific identity or needs.
7. Research and Educational Keywords
These are high-level informational queries from people trying to understand a concept, strategy, or trend. They’re not ready to buy yet, but they are building context. Content for these keywords builds brand awareness and long-term trust.
8. Geo-Targeted Keywords
Geo-keywords put you in front of buyers with local intent. Whether you have a physical presence or want visibility in a region, these search terms help you compete where it counts, on a local level.
How to Build a B2B Keyword Strategy
Building an effective B2B keyword strategy isn’t just about picking the right words.
Learn more about the actual steps below:
- Understand your audience: Begin your strategy by understanding who your audience is. What are their needs and pain points? From this information, you can develop an ideal customer profile. Your strategy must focus on addressing their challenges and interests.
- Define your goals: Set clear, measurable goals for your keyword strategy. These goals can include metrics such as increasing website traffic, generating leads, or improving conversion rates.
Make these goals as specific as possible and set a realistic timeframe. Also, use various analytics tools to measure your performance and the effectiveness of your strategy. - Analyze keywords: You can only find the right keywords by performing in-depth keyword research. This will involve using the right tools, analyzing your competitors’ keywords, and segmenting them by funnel stage.
- Iterate and improve: It’s worth reviewing your keyword plan based on performance data and industry changes to ensure your strategy stays relevant. For instance, Google may release another core update, which could affect your search engine rankings.
Although Google does not dive deep into the specifics of its algorithms, it consistently emphasizes creating content that is valuable to its audience.
B2B Keyword Research Process
The B2B keyword research process entails several core steps to connect with your target audience.
Here’s a quick overview of how to approach this process:
1. Gather Initial Keyword Ideas
First, brainstorm a list of keywords related to your industry, products, or services. What terms are your prospects likely to use when searching for solutions you offer?
Working with other teams, specifically sales and customer service, pays off, given that they understand your customers’ pain points. This ensures that your keywords are aligned with real-world needs.
2. Use Keyword Research Tools
The next step is to expand your list with keyword research tools.
Tools like Google Keywords Planner, Ahrefs, and Semrush provide valuable data on search volume, competition, and related keywords.
3. Evaluate Your Competition
Use keyword research tools to understand your competitors’ strategies. You’ll learn more about what keywords they use and how they use them to their benefit.
Competitor analysis can also reveal gaps in your strategy, such as keywords competitors use more effectively or other content areas where you can offer a unique perspective.
4. Incorporate Keywords into Content
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of keywords, the next step is to integrate them into your content.
Your keyword placement strategy shouldn’t be limited to blog posts and website pages. Incorporate them into meta descriptions, alt texts, and other on-site elements.
5. Monitor Performance
While it’s the final step, monitoring your performance is an ongoing process.
Using keyword research tools, you’ll learn more about the B2B SEO keywords that drive the most traffic and conversions and those that are underperforming.
Tools to Help Conduct B2B Keyword Research
You can’t perform effective B2B keyword research without tools. Now, let’s review the best ones to guide you in the keyword research process.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is a free tool for finding search volumes, historical data, and keyword forecasts. It’s also a powerful tool for discovering new keyword ideas.
You have two options for keyword discovery: starting with keywords or websites. When choosing keywords, enter keywords for products or services related to your business. The tool provides an option to enter your website to filter unrelated keywords.
Otherwise, you can enter your website’s link into the tool to find other keyword ideas.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs boasts a rich database of 28.7 billion keywords in its powerful Keywords Explorer.
While it generates keywords and provides relevant metrics to analyze them — such as traffic value, backlinks, and organic traffic — Ahrefs also leverages AI to create them, identify search intent, and organize them into clusters.
Semrush
Semrush offers a suite of tools for keyword research: Keyword Overview, Keyword Magic Tool, Keyword Strategy Builder, Position Tracking, and Organic Traffic Insights.
The tool lets you quickly find core metrics, such as search volume and keyword difficulty, while discovering related keywords.
The platform helps you analyze competitors’ strategies, track real-time metrics, and integrate with Google Analytics and Search Console to give a complete overview of keyword performance.
While these tools are impressive, mastering them requires significant experience. If you’re short on time or prefer to focus on other aspects of your business, entrust your keyword research strategy to SEO experts.
In business for 10+ years, TrioSEO specializes in in-depth keyword research that is aligned with your business objectives. Our proven strategy ensures you target the most valuable keywords, improve your search visibility, and attract qualified leads.
Moz
Moz lets you check how tough it’ll be to rank for a keyword and if it’s worth the effort. Enter a term, and you’ll see its competitiveness, traffic potential, and who’s already ranking.
Great for deciding which keywords are realistic and rewarding. Moz also groups related keyword ideas in a way that makes it easier to build out topic clusters.
SE Ranking
This is a full-suite SEO platform with a strong keyword research component. What makes SE Ranking worthwhile is its ability to generate keyword suggestions across multiple categories, such as long-tail phrases, related searches, questions, and low-volume opportunities.
It also lets you evaluate keywords through filters like search volume, competition, and relevance, so you’re not guessing which terms fit your strategy. If you’re managing SEO for multiple clients or running a large-scale campaign, this kind of depth is valuable.
How to Prioritize the Keywords
You can build the biggest keyword list in the world, but if you don’t know how to prioritize it, it’s just noise. Here’s how to cut through that and figure out which keywords are worth your time.
Relevance Comes First
Start here, always. If a keyword doesn’t align with what your audience wants or what your business offers, toss it. Traffic that doesn’t convert is a distraction. The right keyword solves a real problem, reflects a real intent, and gives you a clear opportunity to add value.
Understand Search Volume
Search volume tells you how often a keyword is searched each month. Higher volume sounds good in theory, but it also tends to come with stiffer competition. The goal isn’t to chase volume but to balance it. Long-tail and mid-volume keywords often offer better ranking potential without sacrificing traffic quality.
Assess Ranking Difficulty
Keyword difficulty is a measure of how hard it is to break into the top results for a term. Some keywords are locked down by big players with huge domain authority. Others have more room to compete. Don’t waste effort chasing terms your site isn’t ready for. Focus on what’s realistically achievable, especially if you’re still building authority.
Evaluate Search Intent
Even if you can rank for a keyword, it doesn’t matter unless the content you create matches what the searcher wants. Understanding the intent behind a keyword lets you create the right type of page and helps you prioritize what drives real action.
Look at Organic CTR
Some search results are packed with ads, featured snippets, and answer boxes, leading to fewer clicks on organic listings. A keyword might look great on paper but deliver weak results in practice. Pay attention to how many organic links you get for each query, and don’t over-prioritize keywords where your link is unlikely to get clicked.
Factor in Business Value
Ranking is good, but generating revenue is better. Prioritize keywords that have a clear connection to what you sell or the problems you solve. Focus on keywords that tie directly to your services, lead generation, or sales funnel.
Consider Seasonality and Trends
Not all keywords are steady year-round. Some spike during specific times or events. If you ignore seasonality, you’ll miss your window. Plan content for seasonal terms before demand peaks, not after. Use trend data to time your keyword targeting more strategically.
B2B Keyword Research Best Practices
Now that you know which tools to use and have a keyword research checklist, here are some best practices you should follow.
- Match keywords to search intent: Figure out what the searcher wants before you create anything. Are they looking to learn something? Compare options? Make a decision? Let that intent guide the type of content you build.
- Map keywords to the buyer journey: Not every keyword should drive a sale. Some should start a conversation. Balance informational, commercial, and transactional keywords to meet people where they are: top, middle, or bottom of the funnel.
- Focus on business value: Only target keywords that tie back to your actual offer. If a keyword won’t drive qualified leads or move someone closer to becoming a customer, skip it. Traffic means nothing if it doesn’t convert.
- Include long-tail and low-volume terms: Especially in B2B, high-intent keywords often live in the long tail. These terms are more specific, less competitive, and better aligned with what your niche audience searches for.
- Use keyword data to inform, not dictate: Volume, difficulty, and CTR are helpful, but they’re not gospel. Use them as guideposts, not hard rules. If a keyword makes sense strategically, even with low volume, it’s worth testing.
- Keep your keyword list tight and purposeful: More isn’t better. Focus on keywords you can actually rank for, create value around, and turn into real business outcomes. Review and refine your list often, especially as your site gains authority.
Common B2B Keyword Research Mistakes to Avoid
Let’s look at some common problems that can occur during B2B keyword research.
- Prioritizing volume over relevance: Chasing high-volume keywords might get you more impressions, but if the topic isn’t relevant to your audience or offer, it’s a waste. Relevance always beats reach in B2B.
- Misreading the SERP: A keyword might seem valuable on paper, but if the top results are dominated by content formats you can’t compete with or by players you’ll never outrank, it’s the wrong target. Always analyze the actual search engine results page (SERP) before finalizing your keyword list.
- Copying competitors blindly: Just because your competitor ranks for something doesn’t mean you should go after it too. They may have stronger authority, a different offer, or a separate audience. Build your keyword strategy around your positioning, not theirs.
- Ignoring the content angle: It’s not enough to pick the right keyword; you need the right angle. Two pages can target the same keyword but perform completely differently based on how well they meet the user’s expectations and intent.
- Overlooking existing performance: Sometimes your best opportunities are already ranking on Page 2. Before chasing new keywords, look at what’s already working. Optimizing and expanding existing content can bring faster results than starting from scratch.
- Treating keyword research as a one-time task: Search trends, competitor content, and your own authority all shift over time. If you’re not revisiting your keyword strategy regularly, you’ll miss out on new opportunities or lose ground on the ones you already have.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
In this section, we’ll tackle common questions about B2B keyword research to help you optimize your strategy for your audiences.
How Do You Use ChatGPT for B2B Keyword Research?
You can use ChatGPT to kick off your keyword research. Just tell it who you’re targeting, what you offer, and the problem you solve. It’ll give keyword ideas, sort them by intent or funnel stage, and even help brainstorm content to match.
You’ll still need to verify data like search volume and difficulty using actual keyword tools, but ChatGPT is great for the research and ideation stage.
How Often Should You Update Your B2B Keyword List?
Check and refine your keyword list every 3 to 6 months. That gives you time to track performance, spot new trends, and adapt to changes in your product, industry, or customer behavior. If your business operates in a fast-moving space or you publish content frequently, monthly reviews might make more sense.
Can I Use the Keywords for Paid Search Campaigns?
Yes. Many of the same keywords can be used for both SEO and paid search, especially high-intent ones. That said, paid search requires closer attention to match types, bidding strategies, and landing page relevance.
Also, not all SEO-friendly keywords are profitable in PPC; check cost-per-click (CPC) data and conversion performance before adding them to your campaigns.
Is SEO Effective for B2B?
Absolutely! The numbers prove it. About 57% of B2B marketers claim that SEO is one of their most effective marketing initiatives.
That isn’t surprising, considering that SEO helps attract organic traffic and convert qualified leads.
How Do Industry Trends Influence B2B Keyword Research?
When a trend emerges in your industry, conducting B2B keyword research helps you identify new search terms and tweak your strategy accordingly.
Monitor metrics such as search volume and keyword difficulty to gauge the relevance and potential impact of these trends.
What Are Long-Tail Keywords and their Importance in B2B Keyword Research?
Long-tail keywords are more specific, often longer phrases with low search volume but high intent.
For instance, targeting a long-tail keyword like “accounting software for small businesses” might be better if it aligns more with your customers’ needs than a short-tail keyword like “accounting software.”
Conclusion
Mastering B2B keyword research enables you to reach and engage your audience effectively. By following the proper process and using the right tools, you can discover new opportunities to elevate your B2B website.
However, creating a winning strategy requires precision and expertise.
At TrioSEO, we specialize in comprehensive keyword research, crafting valuable B2B content, optimizing on-page SEO, and more. With our strategic approach to SEO over the past 10+ years, we’ve effectively scaled businesses to 6-, 7-, and 8-figure levels.
Optimize your keyword strategy today with our tailored B2B SEO services.