Keyword Research for B2B SaaS Without Drowning in Data

Most keyword research advice assumes you have time to become an SEO expert. You don't.

The real problem isn't finding keywords—it's finding the right ones without spending three days in a spreadsheet spiral.

Here's the workflow we use at Jello to go from "we should write something" to "here's exactly what to write" in under an hour.

Start with objections, not guesses

Your best keyword ideas are hiding in:

• Sales call recordings – What questions keep coming up before someone buys?
• Support tickets – What's confusing or broken for users trying to solve a problem?
• Churn interviews – What did people think you'd fix that you didn't?

These aren't blog topics. They're search intent in plain English.

Example: A B2B analytics tool kept hearing "Our dashboard shows different numbers than our ads platform." That phrase became a keyword cluster worth 2,400 monthly searches they'd never have found through traditional research.

Filter for winnability, not vanity

Most keyword tools push you toward high-volume terms that are impossible to rank for.

Instead, look for:

1. Medium difficulty – You want competition, not dominance. If nobody's ranking well, there might not be real demand.
2. Buyer-adjacent intent – People searching "how to [solve problem]" convert better than people searching "[industry] statistics."
3. Cluster potential – One great keyword should unlock 5-10 related ones you can cover in supporting posts.

Jello scores keywords by how winnable they are for small teams, not how impressive they look in a pitch deck.

Group by job-to-be-done, not topic

Don't organize keywords like a wiki. Organize them like a buyer's journey:

• Confusion stage – "Why does [problem] keep happening?"
• Evaluation stage – "Best way to [solve problem]"
• Implementation stage – "How to set up [solution]"

Each cluster should map to a pillar post (the main answer) plus 3-5 supporting posts (the edge cases, mistakes, and alternatives).

This structure isn't just good for SEO—it mirrors how people actually move from problem-aware to solution-aware.

Ship one cluster before planning the next ten

The biggest mistake is building a 50-article roadmap before publishing anything.

Better: Pick one winnable cluster, publish it in two weeks, and see what happens.

You'll learn more from shipping one real cluster than from analyzing ten theoretical ones. And you'll build momentum instead of drowning in planning paralysis.

That's the workflow. No 37-tab spreadsheets required.