Using Ahrefs to Dominate B2B SEO in 2025

Introduction

Let’s be blunt: if you’re running B2B sales in 2025 and you’re not treating SEO as a core pipeline channel, you’re playing with one hand tied behind your back.

Roughly 71% of B2B buyers kick off their journey with a generic Google search, not a brand name. And search engines drive around 76% of traffic to B2B websites. Organic traffic converts well, too-Ahrefs’ latest B2B research pegs average organic search conversion around 5%. That’s not “nice-to-have” traffic; that’s pipeline.

Ahrefs sits right in the middle of all this. It’s not just an SEO tool-it’s a market-intel engine that can tell you what your buyers are searching for, what your competitors are winning with, and which topics actually lead to revenue.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to use Ahrefs to dominate B2B SEO in 2025-and more importantly, how to connect that SEO work directly to your sales development machine.

You’ll learn:

• Why SEO is still one of the highest-ROI B2B channels (even in the age of AI search)
• Which Ahrefs tools matter most for sales-focused organizations
• A step-by-step B2B SEO strategy you can build inside Ahrefs
• How to feed Ahrefs insights into SDR cadences, cold calls, and ABM
• How to handle AI Overviews and LLM citations so you win in both search and AI

Let’s dive in.

Why B2B SEO Still Prints Pipeline in 2025

Search is still where serious buyers start

B2B buying is brutally digital now. Multiple studies show that most B2B buyers-often 6-10 stakeholders-spend the majority of their journey researching on their own before they talk to a rep.

Some key data points:

• 71% of B2B buyers start with a generic Google search (e.g., “best SOC 2 compliance software”) rather than a brand name.
• Search engines drive about 76% of traffic to B2B sites.
• Buyers perform around 12 searches on average before landing on a vendor site.

All of that research is where your future pipeline is getting shaped. If you’re not visible in those moments-both in classic Google results and increasingly in AI answers-your SDRs are fighting uphill.

The economics of SEO vs. paid

Ahrefs’ 2025 B2B stats roundup pulled together some sobering economics:

• Average conversion rate for organic search: ~5.0%
• Average B2B SaaS SEO ROI: ~702% over 3 years, with a ~7‑month break-even
• Typical SaaS cost per lead: organic around $147 vs. paid search at $280

TL;DR: SEO is usually cheaper and compounds. Paid search is great for quick tests, but costs keep climbing. In a world where CAC is under a microscope, Ahrefs-driven SEO is one of the few channels where your unit economics can actually improve over time.

What changed: AI Overviews and LLMs

Now the twist: search itself is changing fast.

Ahrefs’ large-scale analysis shows that when Google’s AI Overviews appear, the #1 organic result loses about 34.5% of its clicks. Pair that with the already high share of zero-click searches and you get a world where a lot of informational queries never hit your site.

At the same time, Ahrefs’ data across ~66,000 sites shows Google still drives around 40% of all traffic, compared to well under 1% from ChatGPT and other LLMs. Another Ahrefs stat: Google sends 345x more traffic to websites than ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity combined.

So what do we take from that?

• You can’t ignore AI search-you need a plan for AI Overviews and LLM citations.
• But classic Google SEO is still the big traffic and pipeline engine. If you win the right keywords, you’ll feel it in demos and revenue.

Ahrefs happens to be one of the few tools that now covers both worlds.

The Ahrefs Toolbox: What B2B Teams Actually Need

Ahrefs is huge. If you try to use everything on day one, you’ll drown. The trick is to focus on the parts that help you find buyer intent, beat competitors, and prove revenue.

Site Explorer: Market and competitor intel

Site Explorer lets you plug in any domain and see:

• What keywords it ranks for
• Which pages get the most traffic
• How strong its backlink profile is
• Which pages are earning links

For B2B revenue teams, Site Explorer is:

• A competitive positioning map, See which use cases and problems your competitors own in search.
• A content gap detector, Find topics your competitors rank for that you don’t (we’ll formalize this with Content Gap in a bit).
• A sales research tool, Your SDRs can peek at a prospect’s site and see which topics and resources are clearly resonating with their audience.

Keywords Explorer: Buyer-intent radar

Keywords Explorer is where you figure out what your ICP is actually typing into Google.

You get:

• Search volume and difficulty
• Click data (helpful when AI Overviews or SERP features eat clicks)
• Related keywords and questions
• SERP analysis (who currently ranks and what those pages look like)

For B2B teams, this is where you:

1. Discover problem-focused queries ("reduce cloud spend", "how to monitor OT networks") that map to early-stage pain.
2. Uncover category and comparison queries ("X vs Y", "best [category] for [industry]") where deals are being shaped.
3. Identify bottom-funnel queries ("[tool] pricing", "[category] for [vertical]") that should tie directly to demos and opportunities.

Content Gap & Content Explorer: Finding what you’re missing

Content Gap (inside Site Explorer) shows you keywords competitors rank for that you don’t. This is your “we’re not even in the conversation” report.

Content Explorer lets you search the web by topic and filter by:

• Referring domains
• Organic traffic
• Language and publish date

Together, they help you:

• Spot under-served topics where it’s still possible to win.
• See what kind of content actually earns links in your niche (guides, tools, studies, etc.).
• Plan link-worthy assets-especially original data that LLMs tend to cite.

Rank Tracker & Web Analytics: Tracking what sales cares about

Ahrefs Rank Tracker monitors how you’re doing for specific keywords across countries and devices. The key is how you organize it:

• Tag by funnel stage: Awareness, Consideration, Decision.
• Tag by product line: Core product, add-ons, integrations.
• Tag by persona or vertical: Finance, IT, Manufacturing, Healthcare, etc.

Then you can say things like, “Our ‘SOC 2 automation’ decision-stage cluster moved from average position 18 to 7 over 90 days and organic demo requests from security leaders increased 30%.” That’s how you get sales leadership to care.

With Ahrefs Web Analytics (part of their Webmaster Tools), you can also:

• See organic vs. AI search traffic as separate channels.
• Identify which pages get AI referrals and how they convert.
• Track engagement and conversions from organic pages you care about.

Brand Radar & AI visibility: Playing the LLM game

Ahrefs’ Brand Radar and AI visibility features help you understand how often and where AI tools mention and cite your brand.

You can:

• Track mentions and citations across AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity.
• See which topics and queries you’re referenced for.
• Compare your AI share of voice against competitors.
• Spot topics where competitors get cited but you don’t.

This matters because Ahrefs’ research shows:

• AI platforms heavily prefer fresh, data-rich, structured content.
• LLMs are biased toward higher-authority domains when choosing citations.

You can use that insight to shape content that earns both search rankings and AI citations.

Building a B2B SEO Strategy in Ahrefs (Step-by-Step)

Let’s walk through a practical playbook you can implement over 60-90 days.

Step 1: Align on ICP and buying problems

Sit marketing, sales, and product in a room (or Zoom) and document:

• Target industries and company sizes
• Primary personas (job titles, teams)
• Core problems they’re trying to solve
• Key alternatives and competitors they’re considering

This is boring but critical. Everything you do in Ahrefs should map back to these problems and personas. If it doesn’t, it’s probably a vanity project.

Step 2: Build your keyword universe in Keywords Explorer

In Keywords Explorer:

1. Start with 10-20 seed phrases tied to problems and categories ("SOC 2 audit", "warehouse slotting software", "B2B appointment setting services").
2. Use Matching terms, Related terms, and Questions to expand the list.
3. Filter by:
• Country (where you sell)
• Language
• Keyword Difficulty range that fits your domain strength

For each keyword, mark:

• Intent (informational, commercial, transactional)
• Business value (low/medium/high): How directly does this tie to your core product and pipeline?

Ahrefs’ own data shows that 96.98% of clicks happen in the top 10 results. So if you’re targeting very competitive head terms with a weak domain, you’re wasting time. Look for long-tail, high-intent phrases where you can realistically get on page one.

Step 3: Map keywords to the buyer journey and assets

Create a simple map:

• Awareness (problem-focused): "how to reduce cloud costs", "SOC 2 checklist"
• Assets: Guides, checklists, explainer blogs, webinars.
• Consideration (solution/category-focused): "cloud cost management tools", "SOC 2 automation software"
• Assets: Comparison guides, category pages, integration content, demo videos.
• Decision (vendor-focused): "[tool] pricing", "[category] for [industry]", "[competitor] alternative"
• Assets: Pricing pages, ROI calculators, case studies, competitor comparison pages.

Use Ahrefs to:

• Identify which queries already map to existing content (and whether that content is any good).
• Flag gaps where high-intent keywords have no strong landing page.

If a keyword clearly implies “talk to sales soon”, it deserves a tailored page and crystal-clear CTA-not just a blog paragraph.

Step 4: Run Content Gap analysis against competitors

In Site Explorer’s Content Gap:

1. Enter your domain as the target.
2. Add 3-5 close competitors as the “competitors.”
3. Run the report and sort by:
• Volume
• Keyword Difficulty
• Business relevance to your ICP

This shows you keywords your competitors rank for and you don’t.

Prioritize:

• High business value
• Reasonable difficulty for your current authority
• Clear fit with your product positioning

These are topics where your sales team is invisible in early research, and your SEO plan can fix that.

Step 5: Prioritize quick wins vs. strategic bets

Not all keywords are equal. Build a prioritized roadmap:

1. Quick wins (0-3 months):
• Lower difficulty
• Already some impressions
• You have semi-relevant content that can be upgraded

1. Strategic bets (3-12 months):
• Higher difficulty but high business value
• Need new pillar content + internal links + maybe some link building

Connect each priority to:

• A specific content format (guide, comparison, case study, tool, data study).
• A sales motion that will benefit (new vertical, upsell, new product line).

If a piece of content doesn’t have a sales use case attached, think hard about whether it belongs on the roadmap.

Step 6: Fix the technical foundation with Site Audit

Before you dump new content on the site, run Ahrefs Site Audit and clean up the mess:

• Broken internal links and redirect chains
• Orphan pages
• Duplicate or thin content
• Slow pages and Core Web Vitals issues
• Missing canonical tags

Over 40% of websites now pass Core Web Vitals, and technical SEO remains underestimated by many B2B companies. If Google and AI crawlers can’t cleanly crawl and understand your site, everything else you do in Ahrefs is fighting a headwind.

Step 7: Set up Rank Tracker segments that mirror your pipeline

In Rank Tracker:

• Add all priority keywords.
• Create tags/segments for:
• Funnel stages
• Products/solutions
• Personas or industries

Now your monthly reporting can look like:

• "Security decision keywords average position improved from 19 to 9; security pipeline grew 27%."
• "‘Alternative to [competitor]’ cluster moved into top 5; we saw a spike in competitive-takeaway opportunities."

That’s the language CROs and VPs of Sales understand.

From Keywords to Pipeline: Ahrefs Playbooks for Sales Teams

Here’s where this stops being “SEO stuff” and becomes sales development fuel.

Use Site Explorer as competitive sales intelligence

For your top competitors:

1. In Site Explorer → Top pages, see:
• Which pages get the most organic traffic
• What those pages are about (use cases, features, benchmarks)
2. In Top subfolders, see which content hubs are working (e.g., /academy, /resources, /blog)

Sales can use this to:

• Shape objection handling: If a competitor’s top page is “How to reduce XYZ risk,” you can expect that’s what prospects care about-and what your own materials must address.
• Personalize outreach: “Noticed your team’s been publishing a lot around warehouse optimization. We just published data on how [customers] cut pick times 23%-thought it might be relevant.”

You’re no longer guessing what the market cares about; Ahrefs is handing it to you.

Align SDR cadences with SEO content and launches

When you publish:

• A new pillar guide that targets an awareness or consideration cluster
• A new comparison page ("[You] vs [Competitor]")
• An original data study

Don’t just hit “Publish” and move on. Do this:

1. Add the asset to a shared “Sales content” library with a simple one-liner: who it’s for, what problem it solves.
2. Build or update SDR sequences to reference it in:
• Value-led cold emails
• Call talk tracks (“We recently analyzed 200+ implementations and found…”)
• LinkedIn messages as a soft CTA

Because these assets are based on Ahrefs-verified demand, they’ll tend to land better with prospects than random marketing content.

Use Ahrefs to pick verticals and accounts to go after

Ahrefs can reveal which industries or use cases are already showing organic traction.

Examples:

• If your “[product] for manufacturers” content is ranking and pulling in traffic, that’s a good sign to double down on manufacturing in outbound.
• If your “[tool] for banks” cluster is stuck on page 3, maybe don’t spin up a giant outbound push into banking yet.

You can also look at which competitors dominate certain vertical queries, then:

• Have SDRs target accounts using those competitors.
• Use competitor-focused content in cadences (“Many [competitor] customers come to us when they hit X limitation…”).

Ahrefs becomes a market heat map for sales, not just for content.

Feed real sales conversations back into Ahrefs

Flip the loop:

• Record the phrases prospects use on discovery calls.
• Note the questions that keep coming up in email replies.
• Capture the alternative tools and internal DIY solutions they mention.

Feed these into Keywords Explorer as new seeds:

• You’ll often find long-tail variants and new question keywords no one on the marketing side was thinking about.
• Many of those show decent volume but low competition, especially in niche B2B spaces.

That’s free search demand straight from your sales floor.

Advanced 2025 Tactics: Winning in Both Search and AI with Ahrefs

Focus SEO on bottom-funnel queries AI touches less

Ahrefs’ analysis shows that AI Overviews are overwhelmingly informational; nearly all appear for how-to and educational queries. Commercial and transactional queries are much less likely to trigger them.

In practical terms:

• Your top-of-funnel content ("what is", "how to") may lose clicks when AIOs appear.
• Your bottom-funnel content (pricing, comparison, “best X for Y”, integration pages) is still largely governed by classic blue links and ads.

So your Ahrefs strategy should:

• Keep building authority and thought leadership at the top of the funnel.
• But heavily prioritize bottom-funnel clusters where ranking improvements are more likely to translate into demo requests and opportunities.

Design content that LLMs love-and your sales team can use

Ahrefs’ deep dive on LLM citations found that AI tools favor:

• Fresh content with clear “last updated” signals
• Data-rich pages (benchmarks, pricing studies, surveys)
• Structured, scannable layouts (headings, tables, bullet points)
• Pages from domains with solid backlink profiles

For B2B revenue teams, the highest-ROI formats are usually:

1. Pricing and ROI studies
• “How much does [type of software] cost? [N] buyers polled”
• Great for sales enablement and LLM citations.

1. Original benchmarks
• “[Metric] Benchmarks for [industry] in 2025”
• Gives SDRs conversation starters and gives AI something unique to cite.

1. Glossaries and definition pages
• “[Term] explained” content that’s precise, non-fluffy, and updated.

1. How-to guides with concrete steps and screenshots
• Still valuable for SEO and for reps to send as follow-ups.

Use Ahrefs Content Explorer to see what’s already earning links and traffic in your niche-and then build a better, fresher version with proprietary data.

Use Brand Radar and AI Visibility Audit to spot gaps

With Brand Radar and Ahrefs’ AI visibility audit approach, you can:

• See which AI platforms mention and cite your brand most often.
• Identify topics where competitors are mentioned but you aren’t.
• Drill into cited pages so you know which content formats are winning.

Turn this into a playbook:

1. Add your brand and 3-5 competitors into Brand Radar.
2. Filter for “Others only” topics-these are queries where competitors show up and you don’t.
3. For high-volume, high-relevance topics, plan content (or partnerships) aimed at:
• Publishing original, structured content on that topic.
• Earning links from the sites AI is already using as sources.

This is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) without the hype-just using Ahrefs data to ensure you show up in the same places as your competitors.

Track AI vs. organic performance with Web Analytics

Hook your site into Ahrefs Web Analytics and:

• Slice traffic by Organic search vs. AI Search.
• See which pages get AI referrals and whether that traffic converts better or worse than regular organic.

Ahrefs’ own data suggests AI traffic can convert significantly higher than regular organic for some sites, even if it’s a tiny share of visits.

From a sales perspective:

• Pages that get high-converting AI traffic are prime candidates to feature in outbound.
• You can justify more budget for maintaining and upgrading those assets because they’re carrying outsized weight.

How This Applies to Your Sales Team

Let’s translate all this into SDR manager and CRO language.

More, better inbound for your reps

By using Ahrefs to prioritize high-intent, bottom-funnel keywords, you:

• Increase demo and contact-request volume from buyers already in solution mode.
• Attract prospects who arrive educated and problem-aware, making discovery calls way smoother.

Because organic search converts at around 5% on average, and B2B SaaS SEO returns ~702% ROI, you end up with a lower blended CAC compared to relying solely on paid and outbound. That gives sales more budget to invest in quality SDRs and technology.

Smarter outbound that feels less cold

Ahrefs insights let SDRs:

• Reference topics prospects clearly care about (because they’re ranking for or engaging with them).
• Share content that is already pulling in organic interest as a “saw this and thought of you” resource.
• Target verticals and use cases where you’re already winning in search, increasing the odds outbound lands.

That translated into:

• Higher email reply rates
• More meetings per 100 dials
• Less “who are you and why are you emailing me?” friction

Tighter revenue forecasting and board-level storytelling

When Rank Tracker segments match your pipeline segments, you can:

• Show how improvements in certain keyword clusters precede pipeline and revenue growth.
• Justify SEO investment in terms of opportunities and ARR, not vanity metrics.

Boards don’t care about “rankings”; they care about steady, diversified demand in an AI-disrupted landscape. Ahrefs gives you a way to show that your search presence is resilient and revenue-connected.

A shared language between marketing and sales

Most sales-marketing alignment problems come from having separate sources of truth.

Using Ahrefs as a shared system of record for what buyers search, read, and click creates a common language:

• Marketing: “We want to rank for these clusters because they drive X% of pipeline.”
• Sales: “We see these problems and keywords in calls; let’s create content and pages to support those.”

Now both teams are looking at the same Ahrefs dashboards instead of arguing over hunches.

Conclusion + Next Steps

SEO in 2025 isn’t dead-it just grew up. Organic search is still where most B2B buyers start and where a big chunk of your pipeline is born. But now it lives alongside AI Overviews and LLM answers that are quietly shaping vendor shortlists before your SDR ever picks up the phone.

Ahrefs is one of the few platforms that gives you visibility into all three layers:

1. Classic Google rankings and traffic
2. The competitive content and link landscape
3. Your brand’s presence in AI answers and citations

If you:

1. Align SEO keywords and topics with real sales conversations,
2. Use Ahrefs to find and fill the right content gaps, and
3. Plug those insights back into outbound and SDR cadences,

…you’ll stop treating SEO as a side project and start treating it like what it is: a revenue engine.

Your next moves:

1. Run an Ahrefs-powered audit of your domain and top 3 competitors with sales and marketing in the room.
2. Pick one high-intent cluster and build a focused content + outbound play around it.
3. Set up Rank Tracker segments that mirror your pipeline so you can see what’s working.
4. Experiment with one original data asset aimed at both rankings and LLM citations.

Do that consistently over a couple of quarters, and you’ll feel the difference in your calendars and your pipeline reports-not just your traffic graphs.

If you’d rather not build all of that alone, pairing an Ahrefs-led SEO strategy with an execution partner like SalesHive-who lives and breathes cold calling, email outreach, SDR outsourcing, and list building-can help you close the loop from search demand to booked meetings a lot faster.