Imagine ranking for the keyword “Content Writing Agency”, when you are only a freelance writer. That means you would be getting the wrong leads, whose demands you cannot meet since you are not an agency.

This is what a lack of proper keyword research can do to you. It sends the wrong traffic to your site and repels your target audience from you.

Ayomide Joseph, a B2B SaaS Content Writer says,

“It’s not enough to have a keyword in mind; you need to ensure that people are actually searching for it. And not just any keyword, but one that ties back to your content and the problem you’re trying to solve. Keyword research fixes all these.”

Now, having known the importance of keywords, how then do you conduct keyword research for your B2B brand? This is where keyword research tools come in.

Over time, I have worked with various keyword research tools, and I have seen the good, bad and ugly. So, to help you find the best keyword research tool for your B2B brand, I have compiled the top 6 keyword research tools in the industry that you can choose from.  

I also spoke to some industry experts who have first-hand experience with these tools. They include:

Ayomide Joseph — B2B SaaS Content Writer

Precious Oboidhe — B2B Content Strategist and Writer at Content Estate

John Iwuozor — Content Strategist and Writer for B2B Cybersecurity and SaaS Companies

Noelina Rissman — Content Marketing Manager at Constructor 

Deborah Oyewole — SEO Analyst

AbdulGaniy Shehu — Founder and Lead Content Strategist at YCM

Each of them spoke about the keyword research tool they use, and the features they love most about them. 

The keyword research tools covered include:

• Ahrefs
• SEMRush
• Google Keyword Planner
• UberSuggest
• Moz
• Keywords Everywhere

You would also learn:

1. The unique features of each keyword research tool 
2. How to use them (with screenshots)
3. Plans and Pricing. 

Ready to dive in? Let’s go…

Keyword Research Tools for B2B Brands 

1. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Ahrefs is one of the great Keyword Research Tools in the market that you can use to access relevant keywords for your B2B brand. It is a wholesome tool, which runs on the world’s largest third-party database of search queries. Also, it allows you to search for terms in about 171 countries and different search engines.

The tool provides keyword metrics, such as keyword difficulty, search volume, clicks, etc. on every keyword generated. It also gives information on advanced metrics, such as return rate, click per search, percentage of clicks, percentage of paid clicks, etc.

Precious Oboidhe says:

“If Ahrefs was a lady, I’ll shoot my shot till she says yes. Ahrefs is my go-to tool, especially when I’m writing marketing case studies.“

“For instance, one thing I like to know when creating a case study is the subfolders that attract the most organic traffic to the website. And I can easily find this with Ahrefs. This info allows me to go into the rabbit hole to uncover why the top-performing content in the subfolder is doing well.”

Standout Features

The Ahrefs keyword explorer tool has the following unique features, which distinguish it from other keyword research tools:

• It displays the parent keyword for your target keyword.
• It allows you to input and search multiple keywords at once, for up to 10,000 keywords
• The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer also shows the estimated number of clicks that a keyword gets on the SERPs.
• Ahrefs can be used to monitor your website’s outbound links. 

Ayomide also asserts,

“For me, Ahrefs has an extensive database that lets them analyze keywords more in-depth than any other keyword research tool in the market.”

How to use

To use, simply type your seed keyword into the tool, select the preferred country and search engine, and then search. Immediately, you would get information metrics on your target keyword such as keyword difficulty, volume, CPC, clicks, traffic potential, parent keyword, etc.

When you scroll down the page, you would see the top five keywords that people are using in relation to your target keyword. 

To generate more keywords, check and choose from one of the three keyword ideas reported on the tool.

Plans and Pricing

The Ahrefs keyword tool has four paid plans. To start, there is the Lite plan which costs $99 per month. The Standard plan costs $199 per month. The Advanced plan costs $399 per month, while the Enterprise plan costs $999 per month. 

Now, with Ahrefs’ paid plans, you would not only be getting access to their keyword research tool. You would also get access to other SEO tools for SERP analysis, site audit, rank tracker, etc.

2. SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool

The SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool is another much sought-after and highly detailed tool that gives massive information about the keyword(s) you intend to explore. It gives variations of your seed keyword based on categories like questions, broad match, phrase match, exact match, and related.

John Iwuozor has this to say about SEMRush

“I use the SEMRush keyword magic tool feature to get more details about search intent, keyword difficulty, related keywords I can rank for, content gaps and opportunities to take advantage of.”

Standout Features 

The SEMRush Keyword Magic tool has the following features:

• It has one of the largest keyword databases in the world, with about 22.3 billion keywords. 
• It contains about 20 million ideas for every single keyword!
• The tool also gives information metrics such as keyword difficulty, search intent, competition metrics, CPC, keyword density, etc. for each keyword suggestion generated.

See what Deborah Oyewole also said about SEMRush,

“I love SEMRush for keyword research because it is beginner friendly and easy to navigate with the intuitive interface. Also, for data purposes, you can see all the data you need to make a relevant decision in one place.“

Brian Dean, the Founder of Backlinko also has a soft spot for SEMRush.

How to use

To use it, you need to insert a seed keyword into the tool. For example, if you are a B2B SaaS company that offers a CRM tool, and you want to explore the keyword “customer satisfaction”. All you need to do is insert the seed keyword into the tool, choose your desired country, and then click “Search”. 

Then Voila, you have myriads of keyword suggestions from the head keyword “customer satisfaction”

Also, as seen above, you would get specific information about the keywords like search intent, search volume, trend, keyword difficulty, CPC, etc.

Also, you can narrow down your search and filter through groups like questions, language, keyword density, etc. This helps you get specific answers to your keyword research task.

Plans and Pricing 

The free version of the SEMRush tool allows you to make 10 free searches per day. While the Pro version costs $119.95 per month and allows you to make 100 searches per hour and 3000 reports per day. 

They also have the Guru plan, which costs $229.95. And the Business Plan which costs $449.95. However, these paid plans give you access to other SEO tools in the SEMRush kit.

3. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is an extremely valuable Keyword Research Tool that comes from Google itself. It suggests long tail keywords and words which are semantically related to the seed keyword, i.e. synonyms of the seed keyword.

Noelina Rissman said,

“Even though Google Keyword Planner is often looked down upon in favour of other tools, I still believe it’s a great tool to use, especially if you’re just getting started with keyword research and need a budget-friendly option.“

“Not only is it free, but it’s also easy to navigate and has a clean interface. Plus, if you use it in tandem with Google Trends, you’ll get a glimpse of which keywords to leverage in your content strategy in the near future.”

Standout Features

The following are the standout features of the Google Keyword Planner tool:

• The Google Keyword Planner can narrow down and show keyword trends and data for a city or region in a country.
• It lets you filter the keyword suggestions results so that keywords that are not related to your brand or product do not appear. This helps you find the most relevant keywords, without wasting time.
• Google Keyword Planner also allows you to enter 10 head keywords simultaneously and get myriads of keyword suggestions for those 10 keywords.
• It is a great keyword research tool for business websites

How to use

To use the Google Keyword Planner, type the seed keyword(s) into the search box, and input your website URL. Inserting your URL is optional though, as it only helps to filter irrelevant suggestions from the results you would get.

Afterward, click “Get Results” and you would get keyword suggestions, as well as information metrics on each keyword like average monthly searches, competition, top-of-page bids (low and high range), etc. 

Plans and Pricing

The tool is completely free. And the only requirement to use it is to have a Google Ads account. 

4. UberSuggest

UberSuggest is another amazing tool, owned by Neil Patel. It is easy to use and provides a wide range of long-tail keywords, gotten from the seed keywords inputted. It also gives keyword suggestions for search engines, such as Google, YouTube, and Amazon. 

UberSuggest is also a chrome extension tool that can be installed on your browser. Also, asides from the long-tail keyword suggestions it provides, the tool also gives other categories of keywords. Such as related keywords, questions, prepositions, and comparisons. This allows you to explore other keywords, making your keyword bank solid!

Personally, UberSuggest has helped me find relevant sub-topics to cover in my content. Also, it has given me access to important questions that searchers are asking in relation to my target keyword.

Standout Features

• UberSuggest can be installed as a Google Chrome extension on your browser.
• The tool shows keywords in 9 different languages.
• Also, with UberSuggest, you can subscribe to a lifetime payment plan for its premium version.

How to use

To use Ubersuggest, simply open the tool, and type in the seed keyword you want to generate long-tail keywords for. Choose the desired country, and then click “Search” 

At the top of the results page, you would see metrics on the keyword, such as search volume, SEO difficulty, Paid difficulty, and CPC.

Then when you scroll down the page, you would see the long-tail keywords generated from the head keyword searched. To view more keywords, simply click the “View all keyword ideas” section.

Also, when you click on the “related, questions, prepositions and comparison” buttons on top, you would get variations of keywords based on those categories. 

There is also the “content ideas” category. This is the SERPs feature, which houses content that other people have written on the keyword searched. And you can click on any of the links to view the content.

Plans and Pricing

The Ubersuggest tool has unique pricing compared to other keyword research tools in the market. It has a free plan, with which you can make 3 searches in a day. However, the paid plan is in various categories. 

The first paid plan is the lifetime offer, where you pay once and get access to the tool forever! And with that, you would enjoy any new upgrades made to the tool. The lifetime offer costs $120 for the Individual plan, $200 for the Business plan, and $400 for the Enterprise/Agency plan.

However, if you are not interested in the lifetime plan, you can subscribe to a monthly payment plan. And for this, you would be required to pay monthly: $12 for the individual plan, $20 for the business plan, and $40 for the enterprise/agency plan.

5. Moz Keyword Explorer

The Moz Keyword Explorer tool has a unique feature, known as the priority score. And this feature points out to you the keywords that are worth chasing based on metrics such as keyword volume, keyword difficulty level, organic CTR, etc.

Backlinko wrote a complete guide to Moz Pro, and they ranked Moz Keyword Explorer as the overall best feature of Moz Pro.

And they stated the reasons for this assertion, which are seen below.

Standout Features 

• The keywords generated by the Moz Keyword explorer tool come from an extensive database, such as keyword planner data, google suggest related searches, etc. 
• The tool also has an import feature, whereby if you already have a list of keywords, you can easily import them into the tool, to get metrics about them.
• Also, with the new keyword gap tool in Moz, you can see keywords that your competitors are ranking for, that you are not. This then helps you to fill that content gap and level up with your rivals.

How to use

To use the Moz keyword explorer tool, simply input your seed keyword into the tool, and click on “search keywords now”. Then it would direct you to create an account if you are a new user. 

After creating the account, they would send you a mail to activate your account. Having signed up and activated your account, you would be redirected to the tool, where you can now input your keyword, choose your preferred country, then search.

And from there, you would get long-tail keyword suggestions from the seed keyword searched. 

For the keyword suggestions section, you can click “see all suggestions” to get more keywords. And for the SERP Analysis section, you can also click on “see full analysis”, to see more SERP analysis on that keyword.

Plans and Pricing

The Moz Keyword Explorer has a free and paid plan. For the free plan, you get up to 10 free queries per month. 

Then the paid plan is divided into four pricing. To start, the Standard plan costs $99/month for up to 150 keyword queries monthly. The Medium plan costs $179 for up to 5000 keyword queries/month, the Large plan costs $299 for 15,000 keyword queries/month and the Premium plan costs $599 for 30,000 keyword queries/month. 

However, when you subscribe to any of the paid plans of Moz, you get access to other tools in the Moz SEO kit, such as the track and crawl tool, report tool, etc.

6. Keywords Everywhere 

Keywords Everywhere is a great keyword research tool, designed as a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. It is a freemium tool you can use to get great ideas for long-tail keywords depending on your seed keyword.

See what Chima Mmeje, a content strategist and writer for SaaS brands says about Keywords Everywhere in one of her blog posts.

AbdulGaniy Shehu also related his experience with Keywords Everywhere saying,

“I typically use this tool whenever I’m hunting for underserved keywords to target for our clients. 

We recently used it for a client’s article, which helped us uncover topics people were searching for, but no one ranking for that article has covered it. By doing this, we created a content piece currently ranking on the first page of Google, ranking for over 1,200 keywords, and is a top traffic source for our client’s website.”

Standout Features

• Keywords Everywhere is a Google Chrome and Firefox extension that can be installed on your Chrome or Firefox browser.
• It shows all the keyword suggestions and information you need on the SERPs once you type in a search term.
• It is extremely affordable, yet gives premium value.
• The free version gives you information on your keywords such as related keywords, people also search, trend chart, traffic metrics, competitor gap analysis, on-page analysis, etc. 
• And the paid version gives you all the information in the free version, with additional information, such as accurate monthly search volume, CPC, keyword volume data in various search engines, volume data in various e-commerce websites, etc.

How to Use

To use the free version of the Keywords Everywhere tool, all you need to do is install it as a Chrome extension or Firefox add-on. Then whenever you search for a term in your browser, it would bring out information about the search term.

For example, let’s search for “content writing” on Google. After you get the results on the SERP, check the right-hand side of the page, and you would see the Keywords Everywhere tool giving you keywords in different categories, such as:

Trend Data Chart

Related Keywords

People Also Search for

Long-tail keywords

For the paid version, you would also get all the above information. However, when you look directly under the search box, you would see more information about volume, CPC, and competition, as seen in the image below.

Plans and Pricing

The tool has a free version that costs nothing to use. However, for the paid version, you can pay as low as $10 a year to get access to more information on your keywords. 

And the $10 gives you access to 100,000 credits. And you use one credit whenever the tool gives you information on volume data for a single keyword.

To purchase credits, simply click the “K” icon on the right top of the tool. Then open the pricing options, and you would see information on how to purchase credits.

Other Keyword Research Tools to Check out

1. Long Tail Pro
2. Keyword.io
3. AlsoAsked
4. SpyFu
5. AnswerThePublic
6. QuestionDB
7. KeywordSurfer

Choosing the Best Keyword Research Tool for your B2B Brand 

There is no particular “best” keyword research tool. So, the answer to the question of the best keyword research tool starts with the almighty “it depends”.

Choosing a keyword research tool for your B2B brand totally depends on your brand’s goals, budget for content marketing, etc.

However, I recommend that if you are looking for the best keyword research tool for paid keywords, then Google Keyword Planner is a good place to start. To discover the keywords that your competitors use, go for SpyFu. 

For advanced SEO, SEMRush is one of the best keyword tools to get comprehensive information on keywords. And to find question-based keywords, check out QuestionDB. 

If you have any questions or concerns, kindly use the comments section below.