Steal My SaaS Keyword Research That Drove Over $50 Million in Sales

When you work in SaaS, you quickly learn that driving traffic isn’t enough.

You must attract visitors who convert – those who sign up for demos or start a free trial.

Instead of casting a wide net to capture as many clicks as possible, you must target high-intent phrases that address customer pain points and map perfectly to the buyer’s journey.

In this guide, I’ll show you step-by-step how to find genuinely valuable SaaS keywords.

Let’s get started!

How to Do Keyword Research for SaaS: A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Understand Your Market

Understanding your target market is important to understand how they use keywords to find solutions for their pain points and when searching for your software services.

Start by gathering internal data.

Talk to your sales team. These are the people who speak directly with your customers. They can tell you what questions prospects ask on calls, what challenges they voice, and what language they use.

Pull up your CRM data and review help desk tickets. Look at the actual words your customers used to describe their pain points and desired outcomes.

Google Search Console can help you find keywords that are already working for your website or have the potential to.

Open it and click Search Results to review the queries you already rank for, along with impressions, clicks, and CTR.

Check your website’s internal search queries too. These internal data points provide a lot of ideas that you know work, and they help you identify gaps to fill.

Define clear goals and map the buyer’s journey

Set clear conversion goals such as increasing demo requests or free trial sign-ups. Map these goals to the different stages of the buyer’s journey:

↳ Top-of-Funnel (TOFU): Informational keywords. For example, “what is HR software?”

↳ Middle-of-Funnel (MOFU): Commercial keywords. Think “best HR software for small businesses.”

↳ Bottom-of-Funnel (BOFU): Transactional keywords. E.g. “HR software free trial” or “HR software pricing.”

Your SaaS keyword research must focus on intent.

Step 2: Creating a Seed Keyword List

Brainstorm with the team

Gather your marketing, sales, and support teams for a brainstorming session. Write down every topic and phrase that describes your software’s value and solves your customers’ problems.

For instance, if you offer HR software, list seed keywords such as:

→ “employee retention strategies”

→ “HR software comparison”

→ “automated performance reviews”

Think like your customers. Put yourself in their shoes and write down what they might type into Google when they need a solution.

Look at customer reviews & feedback

Go to SaaS review platforms like G2 and Capterra.

Copy and paste recurring questions and phrases into a document.

Notice the language that customers use—often long-tail phrases—and add these to your seed list. This will help you capture authentic customer language that drives high intent.

Brainstorm with ChatGPT

Open ChatGPT and give it a command like:

Generate seed keywords for a [Type of Software] Saas software.

This can give you some semantically relevant seed keyword ideas.

Keep in mind that these keywords are not backed by any SEO data, so don’t just go ahead and use them– no matter how good they sound.

Just copy and paste them to your seed keywords document for now and we’ll validate them later.

Step 3: Expand your Keyword List

Now that you have a list of seed keywords, it’s time to start finding the actual keywords you’re going to target.

Find keyword ideas on Google

Google has many features intended to help users refine their search. These same features can help you find keyword ideas.

First, there is Google Autocomplete.

Start typing any of your seed keywords into the search bar and note how Google tries to complete it.

Take a note of keywords that resonate with your SaaS offerings.

Next, head onto the People Also Ask section.

These are the actual questions related to your software that people are asking.

PAA is an excellent source of question-type long-tail keywords.

Click the questions you find relevant and it will reveal more related questions.

Once you have noted down all the relevant questions, scroll down to the bottom of the SERP.

Here, you will find searches related to your query under the People also search for section.

Take a note of relevant queries and repeat this process with all your seed keywords to find more ideas.

Use Semrush Keyword Magic tool to find related keywords.

Just enter your seed keyword into the Keyword Magic Tool and hit Search.

This will show you a list of related keywords along with important metrics.

You can also sort results by specific keyword types like Questions, Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match, and Related keyword by selecting the desired option.

Now since in this example, most keywords have a very high Keyword Difficulty score, I’m going to filter the list to find easier keywords.

Click the KD% filter and select an easier range.

This will now show you keywords with lower difficulty scores.

You can also define your desired volume range. Just click the Volume filter and select a range.

Fine tune the KD% and Volume filters to find keywords that have manageable difficulty scores but good to decent volumes.

You can also filter results by Intent, CPC, or add negative keywords using the Exclude keywords filter. Or use Advanced filters for specific filter options.

I’d recommend targeting all intents because you want to show up everywhere through your buyer’s journey.

Finally, select all the relevant keywords, click Export > Selected > XLSX.

This will download your selected keywords along with their metrics in an Excel sheet.

Step 4: Analyze Competitors for Keyword Ideas

The idea is to analyze competitors who are already ranking for the keywords you want to rank for– and then target those keywords with better content.

Find your competitors on Google.

Earlier in the guide, you searched for your seed keywords on Google.

Notice any sites that kept coming up? Those are your competitors.

Open any such competitor’s site and note the keywords they use.

Go through their products and categories to find keyword ideas. Also note the keywords they emphasize in their headlines and FAQs.

Now, while analyzing competitor’s website can you some valuable keyword ideas, you don’t know which of their keywords are actually driving traffic and conversions.

For an in-depth competitor analysis, use Semrush.

Even though you might already know who your competitors are, I recommend starting with the Organic Research Tool.

It helps you find your top organic competitors.

Enter your domain, select target country, and hit Search.

On the report page, click Competitors.

Scroll down, and you’ll see a list of your Organic Competitors along with competition level and other relevant data.

Take a note of your top relevant competitors.

Now, go to Semrush Keyword Gap Tool, enter your domain and up to four of your competitors’ domains.

Make sure your target country is selected and click Compare.

Scroll down to the list of keywords and select Missing.

This will show you a list of keywords that all your competitors are ranking for but you aren’t.

Select relevant keywords with a good volume to difficulty ratio and save them in XLXS format.

You can also select Untapped to find keywords that at least on your your competitors is ranking for.

While it might not give super relevant keywords, I have found some hidden gems here many times. So, it’s worth checking out.

Step 5: Narrow Down Your List to the Most Valuable Keywords

At this point, you must have hundreds of keywords. How do you know which ones are actually worth it?

For the keywords you found using Semrush, you must already have their relevant metrics like volume, competition, intent, etc.

Now, for other keywords that you found on Google or on your competitors’s website, let’s run them through Semrush Keyword Overview Tool.

Enter your keywords (up to 100 at once) and hit Search.

This will show all important metrics you need to decide whether a keyword is worth it or not.

Select the relevant keywords and save them.

Step 6: Map Keywords to Buyer Intent & the Funnel

Now that you have a list of validated keywords, it’s time to map them to the right stages of the funnel.

Assign search intent to your keywords

(If you used Semrush, this part is already done for you. Move to the next section.)

Review your keyword list and assign each keyword to an intent category:

↳ Informational: Phrases like “what is HR software” or “how to improve employee retention.”

↳ Navigational: Brand-specific searches such as “[Your Brand] HR software.”

↳ Commercial: Comparative searches like “HR software vs. [Competitor].”

↳ Transactional: Keywords with buying signals like “HR software free trial” or “HR software pricing.”

Defining intent is important. When you align keywords with what users want to know at each stage, only then you can build content that satisfies their query.

Next, map keywords to funnel stages

Link each keyword to the appropriate stage of the buyer’s journey.

If prospects are just learning about HR software, focus on informational terms. (ToFu)

When they compare products, target commercial keywords. (MoFu)

When they’re ready to convert, target transactional phrases. (BoFu)

This mapping will help you produce content that meets users at every step—from awareness to decision.

Step 7: Cluster & Organize Keywords for Content Strategy

Group your keywords into clusters.

Create clusters based on topics, use cases, or funnel stages.

For example, cluster keywords for HR software into groups such as “employee retention,” “performance review automation,” and “HR software free trial.”

This will help you create a clear content strategy and eventually establish topical authority.

Next, map keywords to content assets

Create a content calendar that assigns each cluster to a specific type of content:

→ Pillar Content: Broad, comprehensive guides covering major topics (e.g., “The Ultimate Guide to HR Software”).

→ Supporting Content: In-depth articles, case studies, and comparison pages that target specific long-tail keywords.

→ Product Pages: Landing pages that target transactional keywords such as “HR software pricing” or “free HR software demo.”

Organize your keywords in a spreadsheet.

Now that you have all your keywords along with their relevant metrics, it’s time to organize them.

Create a spreadsheet and add your keywords to it along with their metrics in the following columns:

↳ Keyword

↳ Search Volume

↳ Keyword Difficulty %

↳ Search Intent

↳ Funnel Stage

↳ Cluster

↳ Content Asset (Blog/ Product Page/ Video/ etc.)

↳ Notes

This is what your sheet should look like:

Keyword	Search Volume	Keyword Difficulty %	Search Intent	Funnel Stage	Cluster	Content Asset	Notes
Keyword 1			Informational	ToFu	Cluster A	Blog
Keyword 2			Transactional	MoFu	Cluster A	Landing Page
Keyword 3			Commercial	BoFu	Cluster B	Product Page
Keyword 4			Navigational	MoFu	Cluster C	Homepage Headings

This helps you avoid keyword cannibalization and make every piece of content serve a clear purpose.

Rules of Conversion-Centric SaaS Keyword Research

↳ Don’t waste time on overly generic, high-volume keywords that attract unqualified traffic. Prioritize long-tail keywords with lower search volume but higher conversion potential. Searchers using these keywords know what they want and are closer to making a purchase decision.

↳ Take a note of the real interactions happening between your business and the customers from sales calls, CRM data, and support tickets for missed insights. See what’s already working for you– the conversations and terms that reveal your customers pain points and bring sales.

↳ Every article you create should be a part of your reader’s buyer journey. If you are a CRM management tool, and you write an article about ‘Hr management tool,’ can you be certain that the person coming on that article with that search intent is going to learn, feel interested or buy your product?

If not, that article has no value. So, create content only relevant to your core offerings. Tailor your content for each funnel stage—develop educational blogs for TOFU, detailed comparisons for MOFU, and conversion-focused landing pages for BOFU.

↳ Don’t just depend on automated suggestions from SEO tools without any creative input. Host a brainstorming session with your marketing, sales, and support teams. These are the people that interact with your customers and their insights can help generate valuable keyword ideas.

↳ Study your competitors. Note what keywords they use and how they use them. But don’t blindly mimic competitor keywords without analyzing their conversion power. Use Semrush Organic Research and Keyword Gap tools to discover what they rank for—and then craft content that outshines theirs.

↳ Don’t let your keyword list become cluttered with terms that have little potential. Use Semrush Keyword Overview Tool (or any other SEO tool of your choice) to check search volume, keyword difficulty, and intent. Prioritize keywords that are both attainable and aligned with your conversion goals.

↳ Group related keywords into clusters and use internal links to connect pillar content with supporting articles. This strengthens your site’s authority and helps users easily navigate through related topics.

SaaS Keywords That Drive Sales

Remember, SaaS keyword research focuses on conversions, not just traffic. Use these insights to create targeted, high-quality content that addresses your prospects’ needs at every stage.

And if you’re researching keywords for PPC campaigns, combine it with Google Ads keyword strategies.

Depending on your tool/service, you might also want to learn:

↳ How to Do Keyword Research for B2B

↳ How to Find Easy to Rank, Niche SEO Keywords

Frequently Asked Questions