How to Get Started with Keyword Research For B2B SaaS
In this era of digitalization, you can’t imagine a day without your mobile phones and the internet. The internet, more precisely search engines, are a gateway to solutions to most of your queries. And in the vast ocean of possible search results, keywords are the elements that determine which result should appear first. In this article we have discussed all free keyword research training; all your long-tail keywords, free keyword research, and other keyword-related issues, with particular reference to B2B SaaS.
What are keywords?
Keywords are anything a user types into a search engine to find the results they are looking for. Finding the proper keywords and including them logically into an article or a text piece is at the core of SEO writing. The higher number of appropriate keywords in your content will let the search engine believe that your content is more relevant to the users’ query.
Once the search engine believes that your piece is more relevant to the search, your work will be showcased higher in the search results. This will, in turn, help you attract more views and customers to your website and business.
What is keyword research for B2B SaaS?
Now that you have an idea of what keywords are and how they are essential to your business and website, the question now is how to find the proper keyword? This brings us to keyword research.
Keyword research is the procedure of finding out the phrases or keywords to be precise; customers type into the search engines while looking for products and services that are most relevant to their business.
For this purpose, it is beneficial to use digital keyword research tools. This free keyword research training aims to get you acquainted with the said process. Digital keyword research tools allow you to analyze and compare thousands of shortlisted keyword candidates and finally find the most proper ones. The next step is the usage of these keywords throughout your SEO strategy.
If you are new to SEO content handling, then this free keyword research training will help you get up to speed in this field.
Keyword research is crucial for your B2B SaaS business as keyword research is the only way to find out what your prospects are typing into the search engines to look up your products and services. Apt keyword research will help you to understand the language your customers are currently using over the internet. This will effectively let you optimize your articles and text pieces to appear higher up in search results.
How to do keyword research free?
Now we turn to a crucial topic of this free keyword research training; how to do keyword research? There are several things you can get out of keyword research. So, the very first step for you while doing keyword research is to determine why you want to do the keyword research for your B2B SaaS; you might be looking forward to finding out the language your customers are currently using on the internet, or you may be trying to find out where the keywords included in your content ranks presently at, or you might be trying to find out the keywords being targeted by your competitors. You could also be trying to determine the keywords that you should target at present. Your approach will change, ever so slightly, with different intents.
Since most businesses do keyword research to optimize their websites and businesses, we will discuss the procedure to do the same in this free keyword research training.
So, first, you should have a clear idea of what you want to conduct the research on, i.e., What kind of keywords you want to look for, Following are the instances of keyword categories specific to a SaaS business model:
- Product Type/General Terms — Think of general terms associated with business such as for this software, system, solution, platform, tool, etc.
- Solutions-If your B2B SaaS product provides diverse solutions, consider the terms relevant to your product from a solution perspective. For example, you can think of terms like driving traffic, reducing risk, analytics, scheduling, website security, accounting automation, etc.
- Features-Break down the features your product offers as keywords. For example, accounting security portal, export data, asset manager, API integration, comment management, permission-based access, etc.
- Integrations-B2B SaaS products integrate with other platforms such as Zendesk, Slack, and tools. You should consider these companies as they often have search volume for their brand name, and you can leverage it within your SEO efforts. We recommend you use every known integration partner. For instance: HubSpot, Slack, QuickBooks, Stripe, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Twitter, Drift, Salesforce, SquareSpace, etc.
- Industries & Clients-Most B2 SaaS works with multiple client types or industries that dominate most of your product’s adoption. You may consider including these keywords. For example, Accounting, Transportation, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Agency, SMBs, Aviation, Retail, Enterprise, etc.
- Competitor Alternatives-Often, there’s a competitor who is dominant in your industry. For example, suppose you are building an analytics tool, and Sproutsocial is your competitor. Try using terms such as Sproutsocial alternative or competitors of Sproutsocial to get interesting keyword suggestions and content ideas.
And if you are struggling to find keyword phrases or keywords in general, websites like LSIGraph, Answer the Public will provide you with several keyword ideas if you provide the primary keyword in the space provided.
After finalizing the keywords you want to research, you could go ahead and find out whether you are using any keywords at present; and if you are, then where they are ranking at present. Using free keyword research tools is best to go ahead with your research as they will properly guide you through the process.
While you are at it, you could further go ahead and research keywords used by your competitors who are dealing in similar products and services as you. SEMRush lets you do that in a few simple steps.
Free Keyword Research Tools
Coming back to the use of keyword research tools, there are quite a few tools out there. Following are some free keyword research tools that are most useful for you:
- KWFinder.
- Moz Keyword Research.
- Google Keywords Planner.
- WordStream.
- Keyword Sheeter.
- Questions.
Refining the keywords
In the process, you could end up with a very long list of keywords, many of which may not be as effective as the others. It is thus a wise idea to refine the keywords that you have at hand.
For instance, a keyword in your inventory could mean multiple numbers of products or services. Or the keyword could be pointing to commercial intent, i.e., the person entering the particular keyword could be looking to buy.
Broad keywords are often used by people who are doing some educational search. You should act accordingly, to the best of your necessities. These refinements will ultimately lead to better results for your business.
You could further go-ahead to Google each of the keywords you have at hand and see if they return results related to your products and services. This will let you know the relevance of the keyword.
Determining users’ intent
You should keep users’ intent at the back of your mind while dealing with a particular keyword.
User intent is the intention a user holds while searching for something on a search engine. People could have a number of intentions while searching on a search engine, most of whom are looking for information, with some looking for things to buy and some only looking for gateways to another website. For example, a user could search for “Instagram” to finally get to instagram.com. Determining users’ intent thus helps you better your keywords.
It’s essential to include the type of search intent you can deduce for each keyword. Instances of search intent can consist of the following:
- Awareness-These keywords are primarily used when a searcher has been made aware of the term. Even though they are aware, they are yet to form an opinion or are seeking substantial knowledge.
- Research-Research keywords are slightly more detailed compared to awareness keywords. However, you may witness overlap from time to time. Searchers become aware of the term, and they initiate researching to learn more. They are seeking more information about how the term may impact them. Besides, they also look for strategies to leverage the keyword or learn more in general.
- Transactional-Transactional keywords are beneficial to target. Because the search intent behind the keywords is to purchase or acquire a new product or service. Even though deducting the search intent behind keywords is sometimes critical, note that it is wise to target longer-tail keywords for the transactional side. For instance, transactional keywords might include best product management software, Marketo CRM integration, or Slack integrations. The transactional term denotes that the searcher has crossed the awareness and research stages, and at present, they are considering options to act on. In this stage of keywords research training, you can guide users into understanding how your B2B SaaS product works.
Final Thought
While brainstorming in gathering keyword ideas, ensure to include the data points such as search volume, keyword difficulty, running, ranking URL, rich snippet results. Create a target keyword mapping and list to finalize your keywords. Keywords are dynamic entities, gaining and losing popularity over time. When followed by keeping up with your current market, this free keyword research training will help you give a significant boost to your SaaS business.
