SaaS Keyword Research: How to Map Keywords to 6 Page Types (With a Sample Keyword Map)

Most SaaS sites don't struggle in search because they picked the wrong keyword tool. They struggle because keywords never get assigned to pages. The pricing page targets nothing, three blog posts chase the same term, and nobody owns the "[competitor] alternatives" searches buyers type right before they switch. Good SaaS keyword research fixes that by ending in a keyword map, not a spreadsheet of search volumes.

This guide walks through a seven-step process, from mining sales calls for seed terms to structuring URLs and internal links. It uses a hypothetical employee scheduling app as the running example. Every keyword and map row below is an illustrative example, not client data or a measured search volume, so check your own numbers in a keyword tool before you commit to a plan.

What Is SaaS Keyword Research?

SaaS keyword research is the process of finding the queries potential customers search when they have a problem your software solves, compare tools or get ready to buy, then deciding which of those queries your site should target. It differs from keyword research for a publisher in three ways. Software is often researched over time and by more than one person. Some of the most valuable searches, such as a competitor's name plus "alternatives," look tiny in keyword tools. And the product pages need keywords too, not just the blog.

Research, Clustering, Mapping and Keyword Architecture

These four terms get used interchangeably, but they are separate jobs that happen in order:

• Keyword research finds and validates the queries buyers use.
• Keyword clustering groups the queries that one page can rank for together.
• Keyword mapping assigns each cluster to one page type and one URL.
• Keyword architecture is the finished structure: the map, plus the URL folders and internal links that connect the pages.

The 7-Step SaaS Keyword Research Process

Steps 1 to 3 build the keyword list. Steps 4 and 5 turn it into prioritized clusters. Steps 6 and 7 give each cluster a page and connect the pages to each other.

Step 1: Collect Seed Keywords From Customers, Not Tools

Keyword tools mostly return variations of the words you type in. Start with the words your buyers already use, then feed those into a tool. The best sources are usually free:

• Sales calls and demos. Note the exact phrases prospects use to describe the problem, the tools they use today and the objections they raise. A prospect who says "we still build schedules in a spreadsheet" has just handed you a seed term.
• Support tickets and onboarding questions. Repeated "how do I" questions become blog and help topics, and feature requests hint at feature-page keywords.
• G2 and Capterra reviews. Read your reviews and your competitors'. Likes, dislikes and "we switched from" comments name the features, integrations and pain points buyers care about.
• Reddit and industry communities. Recommendation threads in the subreddits and forums your buyers use are worded the way people actually search.
• Google Search Console. If your site already gets traffic, the Performance report lists the queries that earn impressions, with clicks, impressions, CTR and average position. Its filters accept regular expressions, so a query filter like ^(how|what|why|can|does|is)\s pulls out question queries and (alternative|vs|versus|pricing|cost) pulls out buying-intent ones.
• Competitor navigation. List each competitor's feature, integration, solution and comparison pages. Their menus show which page types they think buyers need.

What About AI Search?

Buyers now ask AI assistants the same questions they type into Google. Google's documentation on AI features and your website says appearing in AI Overviews or AI Mode has no additional requirements and needs no special optimization, so the clusters and pages you build here serve both. For prompt research and answer-first formatting, see our AI SEO strategy for 2026.

Step 2: Add Buying-Intent Modifiers

Take each seed term, usually your category name and your core features, and combine it with the modifiers that signal a buyer close to a decision. Each modifier also tells you which page type should answer the search.

Illustrative example: keywords for a hypothetical employee scheduling app. Placeholders in brackets stand for real brand and tool names.

Only build vs and alternatives pages you can keep accurate and fair. A comparison page with outdated competitor pricing or features costs you trust with exactly the buyers you want.

Step 3: Validate Demand and Find Competitor Gaps

Next, check which terms people actually search and which ones your competitors already rank for.

• Google Keyword Planner. It suggests new keywords and estimates monthly searches. It lives inside Google Ads, and Google's help page says you need to finish account setup, including billing information, to use basic features such as keyword ideas.
• Autocomplete and People Also Ask. Type each seed into Google and record the suggestions and questions. They cost nothing and reflect real phrasing.
• Competitor gap reports. Semrush's Keyword Gap and Ahrefs' Content Gap both list keywords your competitors rank for that you don't. Filter the list for the modifiers from Step 2 first.
• The live results page. Search the keyword yourself. If page one is mostly product pages, a blog post will struggle. If it is mostly "best of" roundups, you need a comparison page. If it is mostly how-to guides, the keyword belongs on the blog.

Treat every volume figure as an estimate. Tools disagree, and very specific SaaS queries often show low or zero volume. If a phrase keeps coming up in sales calls, keep it on the list even when a tool says nobody searches for it.

Step 4: Keyword Clustering for SaaS Using SERP Overlap

Clustering decides which keywords one page can rank for together, so it sets how many pages you need. There are two ways to do it.

• By meaning. Group keywords that look alike. It is fast, but it can merge terms with different intents. "Employee scheduling software" and "employee schedule template" share most of their words, yet one searcher wants a product and the other wants a free file.
• By SERP overlap. Group keywords whose Google results share the same ranking URLs. If two queries return many of the same pages, one page can usually target both. Keyword Insights, for example, clusters keywords that share 30% or more of their top-10 URLs by default and lets you adjust that threshold.

To do it by hand for a short list, search each keyword while logged out, paste the top 10 URLs into your sheet, and group keywords that share three or more of the same URLs. Name each cluster after its highest-value keyword, which becomes that page's primary keyword. As a shortcut, Ahrefs shows a Parent Topic for each keyword, found by taking the top-ranking page and finding the query that sends it the most traffic. Keywords that share a Parent Topic are good candidates for the same page.

AI chat tools can draft a first grouping by intent in minutes. Treat that draft as a hypothesis and check a sample of clusters against the live results before you build pages on them.

Step 5: Prioritize by Funnel Stage and Business Value

With clusters in hand, decide what to build first. For most early-stage SaaS companies, weigh three inputs in this order:

• Buying intent and business value. Score each cluster from 0 to 3 for how easily the page can pitch your product, the business potential scale Ahrefs describes. Grow and Convert, a content agency, argues that when sales are the goal, buying intent should come before search volume and difficulty.
• Difficulty relative to your site. A young domain rarely wins a head term like "[category] software" early. Comparison, use-case and integration terms are usually more realistic first targets.
• Search volume. Use it to break ties and size the opportunity, not to decide on its own.

SaaS Keywords by Funnel Stage

Step 6: SaaS Keyword Mapping Across 6 Page Types

Here is how to map keywords to pages: every cluster gets one page type and one URL, and every URL gets one primary cluster. Map the pages you already have first, then plan new ones for the clusters left over. These are the six core page types and what each should target (example keywords are illustrative):

SaaS Feature Page Keywords

Feature pages should target the job a feature does, in the buyer's words, plus "software," "app" or "tool." "Shift swap app" will match searches; a branded internal feature name usually won't. Give a feature its own page only when people search for that job. Features nobody searches for can sit together on the main features page.

Pricing Page Keywords

The pricing page targets "[brand] pricing" plus the category's cost terms. Answer the cost question on the page with plan prices, what each plan includes and a short FAQ; people who search for pricing want a number, not only a contact form.

Page Types Most SaaS Sites Miss

Each of these fits inside one of the six core types, but they are often left out entirely:

• Integration pages (features). One page per major integration, targeting “[your product] [tool] integration” searches from buyers checking fit with their stack.
• Alternatives pages (comparisons). “[Competitor] alternatives” reaches people ready to switch, and unlike a vs page it can compare several options fairly.
• Industry and role pages (use cases). “[Category] for restaurants” or “for clinics,” each with examples specific to that audience, not the same copy under a new heading.
• Templates, free tools and glossary pages (blog and resources). They answer top-of-funnel searches and give visitors a natural next step into the product.

Sample SaaS Keyword Map

Illustrative example: a keyword map for a hypothetical employee scheduling app. The keywords show the format. They are not measured search volumes or results from a real project.

Notice what the map rules out. No blog post targets "employee scheduling software," because the homepage owns it. The pricing page, not a blog post, answers "free employee scheduling app." And the vs page and the alternatives page target different searches, so they don't compete with each other.

Step 7: Plan Your SaaS Website Structure for SEO (URLs and Internal Links)

Your keyword map should be visible in your URLs and navigation. A folder per page type keeps things clear:

Google's URL structure guidelines recommend readable words instead of long ID numbers, with hyphens between words. Its SEO Starter Guide adds that on sites with more than a few thousand URLs, grouping similar topics in folders can help Google learn how often each folder changes. Smaller SaaS sites still gain clearer navigation and easier reporting by page type.

Google says in its link best practices that it uses links to find new pages and judge relevance, that every page you care about should be linked from at least one other page on your site, and that anchor text should be descriptive and relevant. For a SaaS site, that translates into a hub-and-spoke pattern:

• Hubs list their spokes. The features page links to every feature page, and the use-case and integrations hubs do the same for theirs.
• Spokes link up and across. Each feature page links back to its hub, to pricing, and to the use-case pages where that feature matters most.
• Blog posts link to the page that owns the commercial term. A post on how to make a work schedule links to the scheduling feature page with a descriptive anchor, instead of trying to rank for the software term itself.
• Comparison pages link to the next step. Vs and alternatives pages link to pricing and to the signup or demo page.
• Nothing important is buried. Keep hubs in the main navigation or footer. For crawl depth, orphan pages and the rest of the technical side, work through our technical SEO audit checklist.

If design capacity is what slows down new pages, see our landing page design for feature and comparison pages.

Cannibalization Rules: One Primary Keyword per URL

Keyword cannibalization happens when two of your own pages target the same query, so they split the signals one stronger page could have had. On SaaS sites it usually shows up between a feature page and a blog post. These rules prevent most of it:

• One primary cluster per URL, written in the map. Before you brief a new page, search the map for its keyword.
• Product pages own commercial terms. Software, app, pricing, vs, alternatives and "for [industry]" searches go to product pages. How-to, what-is, template and examples searches go to the blog.
• Check Search Console for overlap. Filter the Performance report by a query and open the Pages tab. If two of your URLs both earn impressions for it and trade positions, merge the weaker page into the stronger one with a 301 redirect, or rewrite it for a different cluster.
• Set canonicals for true duplicates. When the same content exists at more than one URL, Google's SEO Starter Guide notes that search engines pick one canonical URL to show. Google can usually choose on its own, but a canonical tag lets you point to the version you want ranked.

Measuring Results by Page Type in Search Console and GA4

Because each page type lives in its own folder, you can report on it as a group and see which part of the map is working.

• Search Console by folder. In the Performance report, add a Page filter with a custom regex such as /(vs|alternatives)/ to see clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for every comparison page together. Repeat for /features/, /use-cases/ and /blog/.
• Query fit per page. Filter to one page and check its top queries. If they don't match the cluster you mapped to it, adjust the copy or re-map the page.
• Signups by landing page in GA4. Mark trial signups and demo requests as key events. The Landing page report (Reports, then Engagement, then Landing page) shows the first page of each session with a key events column, so you can compare signups from organic visits by page type.
• Review monthly. New bottom-funnel pages usually show impressions before they earn clicks and signups, so judge them on trend, not on the first few weeks.

SaaS Keyword Research Template (Copy and Paste)

Copy the block below into Google Sheets or Excel and split it into columns using the comma as the separator, or save it as a .csv file. Use one row per cluster, not per keyword. The sample rows come from the illustrative map above; business value is filled in as an example, and the other blank columns are for your own data.

Primary keyword,Supporting keywords,Search intent,Funnel stage,Page type,Target URL,Page status,Monthly volume,Difficulty,Business value (0-3),Priority,Owner,Notes
employee scheduling software pricing,[brand] pricing; free employee scheduling app,Transactional,Bottom,Pricing,/pricing,Existing - update,,,3,,,
[Competitor] alternatives,apps like [Competitor]; [Competitor] competitors,Commercial,Bottom,Comparisons,/alternatives/[competitor],New,,,3,,,
restaurant scheduling software,restaurant staff scheduling app,Commercial,Middle,Use cases,/use-cases/restaurants,New,,,3,,,
shift swap app,shift trading app,Commercial,Middle,Features,/features/shift-swaps,New,,,2,,,
employee schedule template,weekly staff schedule template,Informational,Top,Blog (template),/templates/employee-schedule,New,,,1,,,

Once every row has a target URL, sort by business value and funnel stage, and you have your build order.

Start SaaS Keyword Research at the Bottom of the Funnel

SaaS keyword research pays off when it ends in pages, not in a spreadsheet. If you are starting from zero, map the pages you already have, then build the pages buyers use right before they sign up: pricing, a few alternatives and vs pages, and your top integrations. Your main use-case and feature pages come next. Add blog posts, templates and glossary pages after that, and link each one to the product page that owns its commercial term.

Settle positioning first, because your keywords should describe the audience and category chosen in your go to market strategy for startups. The same mapping method works outside software too; our ecommerce content strategy guide applies it to a store catalog.

To check your site's technical and on-page basics before you add pages, run a free SEO audit on your site. If you would rather have help with keyword research, content planning and on-page optimization, see our SEO services for startups.