Using Ahrefs AI Features for B2B SEO: A 2025 Guide

Introduction

If you’re running B2B sales or marketing in 2025, you’ve probably felt this shift already: buyers don’t want to talk to your reps until they’ve done a lot of homework.

Research backs that up. Around 66% of B2B buyers lean on search engines when researching purchases, and 81% start that journey with a Google search before they ever fill out a form or reply to a cold email. SEO Sandwitch

On top of that, they’re now poking ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI tools for recommendations before they even hit Google.

So here’s the uncomfortable truth: if you’re not showing up in search results and AI-generated answers for the problems your ICP cares about, your SDRs are starting every conversation from behind.

Ahrefs has been a go-to SEO platform for B2B teams for years. But its newer AI features-AI Suggestions, AI Search Intent, AI Content Helper, AI Content Grader, AI Translations, Batch AI, and Brand Radar-change the game. They turn Ahrefs from a pure analytics tool into a practical co-pilot for building B2B SEO that actually feeds pipeline.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to use Ahrefs’ AI capabilities specifically for B2B SEO and sales development:

• How to build an intent-driven SEO strategy using AI Suggestions and AI Search Intent
• How to create and optimize content that matches how buying committees research
• How to use AI Translations to test new markets without burning budget
• How to prepare for AI Overviews and answer engines using Ahrefs data and Brand Radar
• How to plug all of this into your SDR machine (in-house or with a partner like SalesHive)

Grab a coffee-let’s dig in.

Why Ahrefs + AI Matters for B2B SEO in 2025

Search Still Drives Serious Revenue

Despite all the hype around social and paid, SEO is still one of the most reliable B2B revenue channels:

• 23% of B2B marketers say organic search is the most effective channel for driving revenue. Semrush
• 70% say SEO drives more sales than PPC. IGW
• 91% report SEO efforts improved both website performance and overall marketing results in 2024. SeoProfy

For sales development leaders, that means organic is not just a vanity channel-it’s a core input into pipeline. Every new ranking on a high-intent query is another stream of inbound accounts your SDRs can pursue, nurture, and warm up.

AI Overviews and Answer Engines Are the New Gatekeepers

Now layer AI on top of that. Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) and answer engines like ChatGPT are increasingly acting as filters between buyers and your site.

Ahrefs analyzed 146 million SERPs and found:

• Roughly 29.96 million queries in their dataset triggered AI Overviews.
• 99.9% of those AI Overview queries were informational in intent. Ahrefs

That lines up with another Ahrefs study that looked at 56 million AI Overviews and found that almost all of them appear on informational keywords-exactly the searches buyers use when they’re first scoping a problem or category. Ahrefs

At the same time, answer engine optimization (AEO) has become its own discipline: optimizing content so AI systems (chatbots, AI search, virtual assistants) can interpret and cite you effectively. Analysts are already warning that brands dependent on traditional organic traffic could see double-digit percentage declines as more answers stay on the AI surface instead of sending clicks. Wikipedia

In other words: showing up in classic blue links is no longer enough.

Why Ahrefs’ AI Features Matter Now

Ahrefs has quietly rolled out a set of AI features built for exactly this world:

• AI Suggestions, generate seed keywords and topic ideas using AI.
• AI Search Intent / Identify Intents, use AI to classify what people really want for a given query based on live SERPs.
• AI Translations / AI Keyword Translator, translate and localize large keyword lists while preserving local language nuances.
• AI Content Helper & AI Content Grader, plan, score, and improve content based on topical coverage versus competitors.
• Batch AI & Patches in Site Audit, generate and deploy fixes for technical SEO issues like weak titles/meta descriptions.
• Brand Radar (add-on), track your brand’s visibility inside AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, etc. Ahrefs Help Center RSO Consulting

Used well, these features do two big things for a B2B org:

1. Make it easier to build SEO around buying behavior instead of keywords in a vacuum.
2. Give you visibility into the AI layer that sits between your content and your future customers.

Let’s break down how to put them to work.

Overview of Ahrefs’ AI Features (Without the Hype)

Before we get tactical, quick tour of the key Ahrefs AI features and how they map to real B2B problems.

AI Suggestions (Seed Keyword Suggestions)

Found in Keywords Explorer, AI Suggestions helps you quickly generate new keyword ideas based on a topic, product, or custom prompt. Ahrefs showcased this in a 2024 article where they used AI Suggestions to move beyond generic terms like ‘gardening’ into more specialized, low-competition topics like ‘xeriscaping’. Search Engine Journal

For B2B, think:

• Turning ‘sales engagement platform’ into dozens of ICP-specific, pain-based queries.
• Finding long-tail queries your competitors haven’t bothered to target yet.

AI Search Intent & Identify Intents

In SERP Overview (and several keyword reports), the Identify Intents button uses AI to analyze each ranking result and group them by intent-informational, commercial, transactional, navigational-and even by concrete task (compare, buy, learn, etc.). Ahrefs Help Center

Instead of guessing, you see something like:

• 45% want to compare X tools
• 28% want to buy a tool
• 18% want to learn about X

That’s gold when you’re deciding whether to build a blog, a comparison page, or a product page.

AI Content Helper & AI Content Grader

These two live in Ahrefs’ Content Kit:

• AI Content Helper, used during content creation. It lets you pick target keywords, intent, and competitors, then scores your topical coverage as you write and suggests what you’re missing.
• AI Content Grader, used for existing content. You plug in your URL and target keyword, and it compares your coverage against the top-ranking pages, grading each subtopic and suggesting improvements. Search Engine Journal

For B2B marketers, these tools help you turn ‘pretty good’ articles into true buyer guides that deserve to rank.

AI Translations & AI Keyword Translator

Inside Keywords Explorer, AI Translations lets you translate up to 10,000 keywords into another language or dialect while preserving local lingo. The AI Keyword Translator (also highlighted by Ahrefs) supports 40+ languages and dialects across 180+ countries. Ahrefs Help Center Search Engine Journal

If you’re a US-based SaaS company thinking about DACH or LATAM, this is how you figure out what people actually type into Google before your SDRs start prospecting in those regions.

Batch AI in Site Audit & Patches

In Site Audit, Batch AI lets you generate page titles and meta descriptions in bulk for issues like ‘title too short’ or ‘meta description missing’. Patches (rolling out more broadly) will let you deploy fixes via Cloudflare workers or JS snippets without dev involvement. Ahrefs Help Center Search Engine Journal

Given that optimized meta descriptions can drive a 5.8% higher CTR on average, these are not trivial wins. SEO Sandwitch

Brand Radar (AI Visibility Tracking)

Brand Radar is an Ahrefs add-on focused on AI visibility. It tracks how your brand shows up in AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot, including competitor tracking and AI-powered filtering. RSO Consulting

Think of it as rank tracking for the AI layer.

Building a B2B SEO Strategy with Ahrefs AI

Let’s talk strategy. Here’s how to use these features to build a B2B SEO plan that your sales team will actually feel.

1. Start with the Buying Committee, Not Keywords

Classic SEO advice: start with your product or category and brainstorm keywords.

2025 reality: that’s backwards for B2B.

Instead:

1. List your core ICPs and buying-committee roles. For example: VP Sales, Head of RevOps, Sales Enablement, IT/Security.
2. Document their top 10 questions or pain points each. Pull from call recordings, Gong, CRM notes, and SDR feedback.
3. Turn those pains into prompts for AI Suggestions. In Keywords Explorer, hit AI Suggestions and feed prompts like:
• ‘Revenue operations metrics dashboard problems’
• ‘How do CROs evaluate outbound vendors’
• ‘Sales engagement platform integration issues’

Ahrefs will return seed keyword ideas you would never have found by typing ‘sales engagement platform’ into a keyword tool.

2. Cluster Keywords into Practical Content Themes

Once you’ve got a big list, use Ahrefs’ clustering features (by parent topic or by terms) to group keywords into themes:

• By parent topic, great for building pillar pages and topic clusters (e.g., ‘outbound sales playbooks’, ‘pipeline forecasting’).
• By terms, great for catching variations (‘cold email examples’, ‘cold email templates’, ‘cold email frameworks’).

For each cluster, ask:

• Which persona is this for?
• What stage of the funnel is it (early research vs. vendor evaluation vs. purchase)?
• How would an SDR use content on this topic in an outreach sequence?

Now you’re not just building ‘SEO content’, you’re building enablement assets.

3. Use AI Search Intent to Decide Page Types

Here’s where AI gets really useful: deciding what kind of page you should build for each cluster.

For each primary keyword in a cluster:

1. Open SERP Overview in Ahrefs.
2. Click Identify Intents.
3. Review the breakdown of page types and intents.

Example outcomes:

• 70% ‘learn about X’ → You probably need a deep guide or explainer.
• 45% ‘compare tools’ + 30% ‘buy’ → You need a comparison page ("Tool A vs Tool B") and possibly a category page.
• 60% ‘use tool’ → This may be a feature/tool page (like a calculator, template library, or interactive demo).

This step keeps you from writing another 2,000-word blog post when what Google (and buyers) really want is a comparison table or ROI calculator.

4. Prioritize by Revenue Potential, Not Just Search Volume

Now that you know what to build, you still need to prioritize.

Combine Ahrefs metrics with sales data:

• Ahrefs: search volume, keyword difficulty, click potential, SERP features.
• Your CRM/analytics: revenue by topic, average contract value by persona, close rates by problem type.

Flag:

• BOFU / high-intent keywords where your content is weak or non-existent.
• MOFU comparison keywords where competitors dominate.
• TOFU ‘problem’ keywords that map directly to use cases that SalesHive-style outbound campaigns already pitch.

You’re looking for topics where a ranking will predictably produce:

• Demo requests
• ‘Talk to sales’ / ‘Contact us’ submissions
• High-intent content downloads your SDRs can follow up on

5. Build a Roadmap the Sales Team Can Understand

Finally, translate your SEO plan into something sales cares about:

• For each upcoming piece, define:
• ICP & role
• Key pain point
• Primary keyword & intent
• How SDRs should use this asset (pre-call education, objection handling, follow-up resource)

Share this roadmap with sales leadership and your SDR manager. When they see new content as ammunition for conversations-not just ‘marketing blog posts’-they’ll be a lot more invested.

Creating and Optimizing Content with Ahrefs AI Content Tools

Once you’ve got the strategy, it’s time to ship content. Ahrefs’ AI tools help you do that faster without turning everything into generic AI mush.

Using AI Content Helper to Plan and Draft

AI Content Helper is ideal when you’re creating a new cornerstone piece.

Workflow:

1. Pick a target keyword and intent. For example, ‘outbound lead generation strategies’ with a commercial research intent.
2. Select competitors. In the tool, you can pick current top-ranking pages to benchmark against.
3. Generate topical coverage suggestions. Ahrefs will show subtopics, questions, and sections you should consider covering.
4. Outline and draft with your POV. Use the suggestions as scaffolding, but have your subject-matter experts and sales leaders inject real stories, examples, and stances.
5. Watch your coverage score as you write. The tool scores how comprehensively you’ve covered the topic versus competitors.

This is how you make sure your article is the best answer to the query, not just another AI rehash.

Upgrading Existing Content with AI Content Grader

Most B2B sites already have a bunch of posts and landing pages that are ‘fine’ but not driving much pipeline.

AI Content Grader is perfect here:

1. Pull your organic landing pages from analytics and overlay with Ahrefs to find URLs with impressions but low rankings or CTR.
2. For each page, plug the URL and target keyword into Content Grader.
3. Review the comparison view:
• Which topics are you under-covering versus top competitors?
• What questions do they answer that you don’t?
4. Revise your page to:
• Add missing sections and FAQs.
• Tighten or remove fluff that doesn’t support the main intent.
• Improve internal linking to and from the page.

The beauty here for sales is that you’re not starting from scratch-you’re upgrading the content prospects are already reading before they talk to you.

Fixing Technical SEO at Scale with Batch AI & Patches

Technical SEO can be a bottleneck because it usually requires dev time. Ahrefs’ Batch AI in Site Audit and the upcoming Patches feature change that.

Practical play:

1. Run a Site Audit in Ahrefs.
2. Filter for issues like:
• titles too short/long
• missing meta descriptions
• duplicate metadata
3. Use Batch AI to auto-generate improved titles and descriptions that:
• Include primary keywords
• Reflect the page’s actual value prop
• Encourage the right type of click (demo, comparison, learning)
4. Where available, use Patches to deploy these changes via Cloudflare/JS without touching your CMS templates.

Given that better meta descriptions alone can lift CTR by ~5.8%, this is one of the fastest ways to turn existing rankings into more site visits-and more pipeline. SEO Sandwitch

Turning Content into Sales Enablement

Every time you publish or refresh a piece, ask:

• Which objections or fears does this content address?
• Which stage of the sales process is it best for (early discovery, vendor shortlist, technical validation)?
• How should SDRs use it in sequences or follow-ups?

Align with your SDR team (or a partner like SalesHive) to:

• Build email steps that link to specific sections or stats, not just the URL.
• Use snippets from high-performing content as cold call openers (‘We just published a breakdown of why X% of outbound programs stall at stage 2…’).
• Turn dense posts into 1-pagers or battlecards for reps.

SEO and outbound should be playing the same game with the same raw material.

Expanding Into New Markets with AI Translations & International SEO

Many B2B companies hit a ceiling in their home market, then start asking, ‘Should we go after EMEA? APAC?’

International SEO used to mean big localization budgets and a lot of guesswork. Ahrefs’ AI Translations and AI Keyword Translator make it much leaner to test.

Use AI Translations to Validate Demand First

Let’s say you’re a US-based cybersecurity vendor thinking about Germany.

1. Export your best-performing English keywords from Ahrefs.
2. Use AI Translations / AI Keyword Translator to translate them into German, preserving dialect and local usage.
3. Check volumes and difficulty for those translated keywords in the target country.
4. Prioritize keywords that have:
• Clear demand
• Manageable difficulty
• Direct linkage to your core value props

This way, you know which topics are worth creating localized content for before you invest heavily.

Pair Keyword Translation with Human Review

AI Translations are powerful, but they’re not a substitute for cultural nuance.

Once you’ve identified promising keyword sets:

• Have native speakers review them for tone and accuracy.
• Validate that the problems and phrases really resonate with local buyers.
• Adjust your messaging and offers accordingly.

Then you can:

• Create localized landing pages and resources.
• Route leads from those regions to region-aware SDRs or partners.
• Use localized content as a trust anchor for outbound outreach in that market.

Preparing for AI Overviews and Answer Engines

You can’t talk about B2B SEO in 2025 without talking about AI Overviews and answer engines.

Understand Where AI Overviews Show Up

We’ve already seen that:

• AI Overviews heavily favor informational queries (99.9% of AIO SERPs in Ahrefs’ massive study). Ahrefs
• Ahrefs found tens of millions of AI Overview SERPs in its dataset, concentrated around questions and research-type queries. Ahrefs

Those queries are often where B2B journeys start.

Use Ahrefs to:

1. Filter your keyword lists by SERP feature = AI Overview.
2. Analyze which of your topics overlap with AIO-heavy terms.
3. Identify gaps where competitors are ranking on pages that frequently trigger AIOs and you’re absent.

Create Content Built to Be Cited

AI Overviews and answer engines look for concise, trustworthy, clearly structured information.

Practical tips:

• Answer direct questions early in your content (within the first 2-3 paragraphs).
• Use clear headings mirroring the questions people ask.
• Include supporting data and examples (with sources) to increase credibility.
• Use schema markup (FAQ, HowTo, Product, Organization) where relevant to provide machine-readable structure.

Then track:

• Whether your pages start to show up in AIO-related SERPs.
• How your traffic patterns change for those queries over time.

Track AI Visibility with Brand Radar

If you opt into Ahrefs Brand Radar, you can go a level deeper:

• See how often your brand is mentioned in AI-generated answers for specific prompts.
• Analyze citation position-are you the primary recommendation or a footnote?
• Benchmark share of voice vs. competitors across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot. RSO Consulting

Feed this intel back into both marketing and sales:

• Marketing knows which prompts and topics to double down on.
• Sales and SDRs see how buyers might be hearing about your brand before they ever hit your website.

How This Applies to Your Sales Team

Let’s pull this out of the SEO weeds and into the sales floor.

Better Search Visibility = Warmer Conversations

When your SEO is dialed in using Ahrefs AI:

• Prospects land on content that speaks directly to their role and problem.
• They binge 2-3 pieces before ever filling a form.
• By the time they talk to your SDR, they’ve adopted your language for the problem and have seen your proof points.

That shifts your SDR’s job from ‘explain what we do’ to ‘align timing, requirements, and next steps.’

SEO Insights Should Inform SDR Messaging

Ahrefs is a goldmine of messaging intel if you share it with sales:

• Top ‘opportunity’ keywords where you’re climbing the ranks → great for SDR email subject lines and call openers.
• Questions from People Also Ask / related keywords → great for objection handling and discovery questions.
• Competitor pages that keep beating you → ideal for competitor takeout campaigns and battlecards.

Make it a monthly ritual:

1. Marketing pulls a short Ahrefs-based report: new rankings, rising topics, competitor moves.
2. SDR managers and SalesHive-style partners turn that into:
• New email angles
• Updated call scripts
• Fresh social touches

Use SEO to Prioritize Accounts

If you pair Ahrefs with your analytics and marketing automation, you can often see:

• Which companies are repeatedly visiting high-intent SEO pages.
• Which regions or industries are overrepresented among organic leads.

Even without deep integration, you can:

• Identify which types of companies (size, vertical) tend to search for your highest-intent keywords.
• Feed that profile into list-building and outbound targeting.

That’s exactly the type of loop a specialist B2B SDR partner like SalesHive can help operationalize-taking SEO intent and turning it into laser-targeted outreach.

Partnering with Specialists: Where SalesHive Fits

You don’t have to choose between building a strong SEO engine and building a strong outbound engine. In fact, the companies winning right now are the ones doing both-and making them reinforce each other.

Here’s a simple split of responsibilities:

• Your internal marketing team uses Ahrefs AI to:
• Map buying-committee questions to keywords and content.
• Build and optimize pages that rank for those topics.
• Track AI Overview and answer engine visibility.

• Your sales org and/or SalesHive uses that intel to:
• Target accounts that look like your organic buyers.
• Mirror the language prospects use in search and AI tools.
• Follow up on inbound signals with high-quality, multi-touch outbound.

SalesHive, specifically, brings:

• Cold calling and email outreach tuned to the pains and phrases your SEO data surfaces.
• SDR outsourcing so you don’t need to hire and ramp a full in-house team.
• List building aligned with your highest-value SEO personas and geos.
• A track record of 100,000+ meetings booked for 1,500+ B2B clients, which means they’ve seen what works across a lot of funnels and industries.

You use Ahrefs AI to understand where demand is and how buyers talk. SalesHive helps make sure someone actually talks back when they raise their hand-or before they do.

Conclusion + Next Steps

AI hasn’t killed SEO. It’s just raised the bar.

B2B buyers still start with search—81% with Google, and a growing chunk with AI tools. Organic search remains one of the most effective revenue channels, and nearly half of B2B marketers are already using AI tools to optimize for it. SEO Sandwitch Semrush

Ahrefs’ AI features give you the leverage you need to keep up without bloating your headcount:

• Use AI Suggestions and clustering to build a buying-committee-driven keyword universe.
• Use AI Search Intent / Identify Intents to map topics to the right page types and funnel stages.
• Use AI Content Helper and Content Grader to create and refine content that deserves to rank.
• Use AI Translations to test and scale into new geos.
• Use Batch AI and Patches to clean up technical issues that quietly drain CTR and traffic.
• Use Brand Radar and SERP feature tracking to understand and improve how you appear in AI Overviews and answer engines.

Then, don’t let that intelligence die in marketing. Share it with your SDR team and partners like SalesHive so outbound and inbound are finally playing the same game.

If you want a concrete next step for this week:

1. Pick one ICP and one solution.
2. Build a 30-50 keyword plan with AI Suggestions and Identify Intents.
3. Upgrade 3-5 core pages with Content Grader and Batch AI.
4. Hand the resulting messaging to your SDRs or SalesHive and build an outbound campaign around those same pains.

Run that loop for one quarter, and you’ll feel the difference where it matters: in meetings booked and pipeline created, not just keywords ranked.