B2B keyword research without a big tool budget

Why volume is misleading in B2B

In B2C, search volume is a useful indicator: many searches, many potential buyers. In B2B, that isn't true.

A term like web design has high volume and brings in students, the curious and competitors. A term like web design agency for mechanical engineering may have twenty searches a month, and each of them can be a five-figure project.

Then there is the number of customers you actually need. A service provider with an average project value of 15,000 euros doesn't need a thousand visitors a month. They need twenty of the right ones.

This leads to a different evaluation: instead of sorting by volume, sort by closeness to purchase. A term where someone compares, calculates or selects is worth more than ten where someone is just informing themselves.

As a rule of thumb: anything with a qualifier (an industry, a region, a use case, a comparison, a price) is more valuable in B2B than the basic term.

The most valuable line in Search Console

In B2C, search volume is a useful indicator: many searches, many potential buyers. In B2B, that isn't true.

A term like web design has high volume and brings in students, the curious and competitors. A term like web design agency for mechanical engineering may have twenty searches a month, and each of them can be a five-figure project.

Then there is the number of customers you actually need. A service provider with an average project value of 15,000 euros doesn't need a thousand visitors a month. They need twenty of the right ones.

This leads to a different evaluation: instead of sorting by volume, sort by closeness to purchase. A term where someone compares, calculates or selects is worth more than ten where someone is just informing themselves.

As a rule of thumb: anything with a qualifier (an industry, a region, a use case, a comparison, a price) is more valuable in B2B than the basic term.

The four free sources

1. Google Search Console. The most important one, because it shows your real data. Under Performance, you can see which search queries you already get impressions for. Especially interesting: terms with many impressions and few clicks. You already rank there, just with the wrong page or the wrong title.

2. Search itself. Enter your main term and look at the suggestions while typing, at the box with related questions and at the related searches at the bottom of the page. These are real phrases from real people.

3. Your own inquiries. Read the last thirty emails from prospects and note which words they use. This is the most honest source of all, because it contains your customers' language, not your industry's.

4. Your competitors. Look at the navigation and page titles of the three most relevant ones. Which topics have their own page? That is a map of what people search for in your market.

How to sort terms by intent

A term on its own says little. The intent behind it decides which page belongs to it.

Informational search. What is a headless CMS. Someone wants to understand. The right answer: an article. Rarely brings in an inquiry directly, but builds trust and gets cited in AI answers.

Comparison. Webflow or WordPress. Someone is narrowing down. The right answer: a comparison article. One of the most valuable formats in B2B, because the buying decision has already begun.

Provider search. B2B web design agency. Someone is looking for someone. The right answer: a service page, not a blog page.

Brand search. Your company name. Someone already knows you. The right answer: the homepage, and it should be convincing.

The most common mistake is answering a provider search with a blog post. Someone looking for an agency doesn't want to read an explanation, they want to see a provider. Google notices this from the bounce-back rate.

The list that comes out of it

The four sources turn into a table with five columns:

Term: how people search, not what you call it.

Intent: information, comparison, provider search, brand.

Target page: which existing page answers it, or which one is missing.

Current position: from Search Console, if available.

Priority: by closeness to purchase, not by volume.

Two rules keep the list useful.

One term, one page. Two pages on the same topic compete against each other, and Google picks one, usually not the one you want.

No term without a target page. If no page fits, it isn't a keyword, it is a task: a page is missing.

Fifteen to thirty terms are enough to start with. If you start with two hundred, you won't work through any of them.

What Search Console shows that no tool knows

Three analyses are especially worthwhile because they are only possible with your own data.

Many impressions, hardly any clicks. You are visible, but nobody clicks. The cause is almost always the title or the description, or the wrong page is ranking. This is the fastest lever of all, because the ranking is already there.

Positions 8 to 20. These terms are within reach. A revised page often brings them onto the first page. A term in position 40, on the other hand, is far away.

Terms that surprise you. Almost every website ranks for things nobody planned. Sometimes there is a topic in there that you underestimated and that deserves its own page.

A practical tip: filter by country and by search type web. Otherwise, image search and international impressions get mixed in and distort the values.

When a paid tool makes sense

For the first list, you don't need one. It starts to make sense in three situations.

When you want to know what competitors rank for that you can't keep track of yourselves. That is the strongest reason, because it shows gaps.

When you want to track positions over time. Search Console shows average positions that get blurry due to fluctuations. A rank tracker measures defined terms daily.

When the website is big enough that an overview by hand is no longer possible, from around a hundred pages.

What a tool doesn't deliver: the judgment of which terms fit your business. Search volume and difficulty scores are estimates, some with considerable deviations. They help with sorting, not with deciding.

If you start without a tool today, you lose nothing, as long as you actually use Search Console.