Using Ahrefs: Techniques for B2B SEO Wins

Introduction

If your sales team is grinding on cold calls and outbound sequences but your pipeline still feels choppy, there’s a good chance you’re ignoring one of the biggest levers you have: B2B SEO.

Roughly 71% of B2B buyers start their research with a Google search, and about 85% trust organic results more than paid ads. Sopro That means long before an SDR hits send on an email, your prospects are already reading someone’s content-yours or your competitor’s.

At the same time, SEO leads convert far better than typical outbound. Multiple studies put organic leads at about a 14.6% close rate vs. 1.7% for outbound leads like cold calls and direct mail. involve.me So when you get SEO right, you’re not just adding “brand awareness”-you’re feeding your sales team warmer, higher‑intent conversations.

Ahrefs is one of the few tools that can give you the complete picture: what your buyers search for, how competitors capture that demand, and where your site is leaking traffic or trust. But most teams barely scratch the surface. They log in to check a few rankings, maybe run a one‑off audit, and call it a day.

This guide is about using Ahrefs as a pipeline machine-not a vanity dashboard. We’ll walk through practical workflows to:

• Find revenue‑focused B2B keywords (not just big volume terms)
• Reverse‑engineer competitor funnels and content
• Turn SEO insights into SDR messaging and targeting
• Use Site Audit and Rank Tracker to protect and grow your inbound
• Navigate AI Overviews and modern SERPs without panicking

By the end, you should have a concrete playbook to turn Ahrefs data into meetings, opportunities, and closed‑won deals.

1. Why Ahrefs + B2B SEO Is a Pipeline Machine

B2B buyers are already searching without you

Today’s B2B buyers are deeply self‑directed. Ahrefs’ 2025 B2B SEO stats roundup shows that:

• 61% of B2B buyers prefer a rep‑free buying experience
• Only about 5% of your total addressable market is “in‑market” at any time
• Buying groups often include 10-11 stakeholders and take ~11.5 months to make a decision

Layer on top that organic search still drives around 53.3% of trackable web traffic across industries. Digital World Institute In other words, most of your future pipeline will first encounter you (or your competitors) via a search result-not an SDR.

Ignoring SEO in that environment isn’t just a marketing problem; it’s leaving sales pipeline on the table.

Why Ahrefs is uniquely useful for B2B

You don’t need to memorize every feature in Ahrefs. Think about it in plain sales terms:

• Site Explorer, Shows how any site (yours or a competitor’s) actually earns traffic: top pages, top keywords, and which content is probably feeding their pipeline.
• Keywords Explorer, Tells you what your ICP is typing into Google and which topics are realistic to rank for.
• Content Explorer, A searchable database of content across the web. Great for spotting topics that attract links, PR angles, and thought‑leadership ideas.
• Site Audit, A continuous health check for your site’s technical issues that can quietly kill conversions.
• Rank Tracker, Tracks how your most important keywords move over time and how they stack up against competitors.

Used together, Ahrefs lets you:

1. Map your market’s search demand, What problems buyers research, in what language.
2. See where competitors capture that demand, Which pages actually show up and win clicks.
3. Decide where to fight and how, What content to create, what pages to optimize, and where to build authority with links.
4. Measure impact on revenue, By tying traffic and rankings back to form‑fills, demos, and deals.

Now let’s get into the workflows.

2. Core Ahrefs Workflows for B2B SEO Wins

2.1 Find revenue keywords (not just traffic)

The biggest mistake I see is B2B teams chasing keywords because they “have volume.” In reality, a 200‑search‑per‑month term like “SOC 2 automation software” can be worth far more than a 5,000‑search “what is SOC 2” article if you sell compliance tools.

Here’s a simple, sales‑friendly keyword process in Ahrefs:

1. Start with real pains. Sit down with SDRs and AEs and list the top 20-30 questions and objections they hear on calls. These are your seed topics.
2. Drop those into Keywords Explorer. Use broad match and phrase match to explode out related queries.
3. Filter by business context. Add include filters like `software`, `platform`, `tool`, `solution`, `services`, `for [industry]` to catch more commercial queries.
4. Use the Search Intent column. In 2024 Ahrefs added a Search Intent column that labels keywords as informational, commercial, transactional, or navigational. Use that to sort out “how‑to” research from “ready to buy” phrases.
5. Score business potential 0-3. For each keyword, quickly rate:
• 3, We can pitch our product directly (e.g., “sales engagement platform for SaaS”).
• 2, Product can be mentioned naturally (e.g., “how to ramp SDRs faster”).
• 1, Tangential topic, good for awareness only.
• 0, Not relevant or won’t ever lead to a sale.

Now you’re not just looking at search volume. You’re looking at revenue potential.

From there, you:

• Prioritize 3s and high‑intent 2s for landing pages and deep product‑led content.
• Use 1s and low‑intent 2s for top‑of‑funnel thought leadership and lead magnets.
• Mostly ignore 0s, no matter how big the volume looks.

Tie this back to the sales floor by sharing:

• Which customer pains show up most in search terms
• Which industries show up in queries (e.g., “for manufacturers,” “for SaaS”)
• Which objections (“implementation time,” “pricing,” “SOC 2”) surface repeatedly

Those insights refine your talk tracks and outbound angles.

2.2 Reverse‑engineer competitors’ pipeline pages

If a competitor is consistently “showing up everywhere” with buyers, Ahrefs can tell you exactly how they’re doing it.

Step‑by‑step in Site Explorer:

1. Enter a competitor’s domain (e.g., `competitor.com`).
2. Go to Top pages by organic traffic.
3. Filter by:
• URL patterns like `/pricing`, `/solutions/`, `/industry/`, `/compare/`.
• Keywords that smell like money: `software`, `platform`, `services`, `RFP`, `RFI`, `tool`.
4. Click into each page to see:
• Which keywords drive traffic
• How competitive those keywords are
• What the SERP looks like (other players, AI Overviews, ads)

You’ll spot patterns fast:

• Comparison pages like “Vendor A vs Vendor B” or “Best [category] tools”
• Industry landing pages (e.g., “Expense management for construction”)
• Glossaries or resources that quietly funnel traffic to product pages

Then, use the Content Gap report:

1. In Site Explorer, choose Content Gap.
2. Add 2-3 competitors.
3. Compare them against your domain.
4. Filter for keywords where they rank in the top 10 and you don’t rank at all.

This gives you the table‑stakes topic list you’re missing. Some of these will be pure awareness, but others will scream “late‑stage buyer,” like:

• `[product] pricing`
• `[competitor] alternatives`
• `[category] RFP template`

Those should become priority pages in your roadmap.

2.3 Build a B2B topic map by persona and buying stage

Most B2B buying journeys involve around 12 information sources before a decision. If your content only speaks to one or two stages, you’re present for a tiny slice of that journey.

Use Ahrefs to build a simple topic map:

1. Pick 2-3 core personas (e.g., VP Sales, RevOps Lead, CFO).
2. For each persona, use Keywords Explorer with their specific language (e.g., “sales capacity planning,” “CAC payback,” “pipeline coverage by segment”).
3. Export 50-100 relevant keywords per persona.
4. In a spreadsheet, add columns for:
• Problem aware (e.g., “why reps miss quota,” “how to reduce churn”).
• Solution aware (e.g., “sales engagement platform,” “Revenue operations software”).
• Vendor aware (e.g., `[your category] pricing`, `[competitor] vs [you]`).
5. Map each keyword into a stage and jot down:
• Content idea (guide, template, calculator, webinar)
• Target CTA (newsletter, ebook, demo, trial)

This becomes your editorial calendar and a cheat sheet for SDR sequences:

• Problem‑aware content fuels top‑of‑funnel sequences and LinkedIn touches.
• Solution‑aware content fits perfectly into mid‑funnel nurture.
• Vendor‑aware content supports AE follow‑ups and late‑stage deals.

Now Ahrefs isn’t “marketing’s tool.” It’s a shared map of the conversations you need to own across the whole buying committee.

3. Turning Ahrefs Data into Sales Development Fuel

Most teams stop at “we created SEO content.” The real upside starts when you wire that content into daily sales activity.

3.1 Use SEO content as call and email ammo

In Ahrefs’ own B2B content marketing case studies, they highlight companies like Mosaic.tech, whose glossary of financial terms ranks for over 20,000 keywords and generates tens of thousands of organic visits each month-directly contributing to pipeline. That kind of asset is gold for SDRs.

Here’s how to weaponize your top SEO pages:

1. In Site Explorer → Top pages, filter by pages that:
• Have meaningful traffic
• Are relevant to your ICP
• Tie to real opportunities (look in your CRM for UTMs or URLs on first‑touch/last‑touch)
2. For each high‑value page, create:
• A one‑sentence pain statement
• A one‑sentence promise or insight
• 1-2 questions an SDR can ask to start a conversation
3. Add those snippets into your call scripts and email templates.

Example (for a “SDR onboarding checklist” article):

• Call opener angle: “A lot of teams downloading our SDR onboarding checklist tell us it’s still taking them 4-6 months to get reps productive. How long does it take new SDRs on your team to hit quota?”
• Email hook: “We recently published a data‑backed SDR onboarding checklist that cut ramp time by ~30% for some clients-worth a quick look?”

The content isn’t just a link; it’s an excuse to talk about a problem the prospect has already demonstrated interest in.

3.2 Prioritize accounts based on organic demand

Ahrefs can also inform which markets and accounts your SDRs chase first.

By vertical:

• Use Keywords Explorer to compare search interest across industries. For example, search `[category] software for manufacturing` vs. `for SaaS` vs. `for healthcare`.
• Look at search volume and keyword difficulty; if one vertical has a rich set of mid‑intent keywords but weak competition, that’s an attractive segment to double‑down on with both SEO and outbound.

By account:

• In Content Explorer, search for your core topics and filter for content written by companies that look like good accounts.
• Export those domains as a “content‑active” prospect list-these companies are already investing in your problem space.
• Feed that list into your SDR team as a priority tier, with messaging that references the topics they’re publishing on.

This is especially powerful in ABM motions: instead of blasting every account with the same pitch, you start with the ones whose behavior (and content) suggests they’re paying attention to the space.

3.3 Build smarter nurture and follow‑up around keyword clusters

Not every lead is ready for a demo. Many say “later” and fall into a black hole.

Use your Ahrefs keyword clusters to structure nurture programs:

• For each cluster (e.g., “sales onboarding,” “forecasting accuracy,” “pipeline coverage”), group your ranking articles and resources.
• Build mini nurture tracks where each email focuses on a specific pain surfaced in those keywords.
• Have SDRs choose the appropriate track after a discovery call based on the prospect’s dominant pain.

Because the content is built from real search data, it feels naturally relevant-and when that prospect does go back to Google, they’re more likely to find you again.

4. Technical & On‑Site SEO with Ahrefs: Protecting the Revenue Engine

Great rankings don’t matter if your site is slow, broken, or quietly deindexed. Technical SEO isn’t glamorous, but it’s how you avoid waking up to a 30% drop in demo requests.

4.1 Always‑on Site Audits to catch revenue leaks

In 2025 Ahrefs introduced Always‑on Audits (AOA)-continuous crawling that monitors your site 24/7 and flags new critical issues as they appear, instead of waiting for a weekly or monthly crawl.

For B2B teams, think of AOA as monitoring your digital sales floor. Examples of what it can catch before sales feels the pain:

• A misconfigured redirect that suddenly sends your “/demo” page to a 404.
• A robots.txt or meta noindex mistake that hides your pricing page from Google.
• A JavaScript error that prevents your form from submitting on certain browsers.

Set it up like this:

1. In Site Audit, crawl your full site and tag critical conversion pages (pricing, demo, trial, key solution pages).
2. Enable Always‑on Audits and configure alerts for new error‑level issues.
3. Have alerts go to both marketing/ops and a RevOps or sales leader so impact gets attention.

When you frame Site Audit in terms of protecting forms and meetings, it suddenly matters to the whole revenue org.

4.2 Make your site fast, mobile, and trustworthy

Technical SEO isn’t just bots and sitemaps. It’s user experience, too.

Ahrefs’ B2B stats roundup cites research showing about 80% of B2B buyers use mobile at work, and more than 60% say mobile played a significant role in a recent purchase. At the same time, only around 40% of sites currently pass all Core Web Vitals thresholds.

Use Site Audit to:

• Flag pages with poor Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, FID/INP)
• Identify large images, blocking scripts, or bloated CSS
• Check mobile viewport issues and clickable‑element spacing on key forms

Then prioritize fixes on the pages that actually make you money:

• Demo and trial signup pages
• Pricing and ROI calculators
• Industry and solution landing pages

Even small gains in speed and usability here can mean more form completions and fewer drop‑offs-wins your SDRs will feel in their calendars.

4.3 Use internal links to funnel authority into sales pages

Most mature B2B sites have dozens of blog posts, ebooks, and case studies that have picked up solid backlinks over the years. But those pages often act like isolated islands.

Use Ahrefs to:

1. Open Best by links in Site Explorer for your domain to find pages with the most referring domains.
2. For each, ask: “Which revenue page could this naturally point to?”
3. Add contextual internal links from those assets to your:
• Product overview pages
• Industry pages
• Comparison pages
• Pricing and demo pages

You’re essentially re‑routing authority you already earned to the pages that close deals. This is one of the fastest, lowest‑cost ways to move important terms up the SERP.

5. Authority & Links: Ahrefs‑Driven B2B Link Building That Sales Won’t Hate

Backlinks still matter, especially in competitive B2B verticals. But you don’t need to spam the internet; you need links that:

• Come from relevant, high‑authority sites
• Send real referral traffic
• Reinforce your positioning as a trusted expert

Ahrefs is your radar for which content and relationships are worth chasing.

5.1 Find linkable assets and topics with Content Explorer

In Content Explorer, search for your main topics (e.g., “B2B sales benchmarks,” “SDR compensation,” “RevOps metrics”). Then:

• Filter by Domain Rating (e.g., DR 40-90)
• Sort by referring domains
• Look at content types: original research, benchmarks, templates, calculators, glossaries

You’ll quickly see what the market likes to link to. Pair that with the fact that around 95% of B2B decision‑makers say strong thought leadership makes them more receptive to sales outreach-and 79% are more likely to advocate for vendors that consistently produce high‑quality thought leadership.

So your linkable assets (data reports, industry studies, deep how‑tos) are doing double duty:

• Earning links and rankings
• Making prospects more open to your SDRs when they eventually call or email

5.2 Steal backlink opportunities the right way

Ahrefs’ Link intersect is perfect for pragmatic B2B link building.

1. Enter 2-3 of your top competitors.
2. Ask Ahrefs to show sites that link to them but not you.
3. Filter by:
• DR (e.g., 40+)
• Organic traffic (to avoid dead sites)
• Language/region relevance

You now have a warm list of websites already interested in your category. Outreach becomes less “hey, random blogger” and more “you’ve already featured resources on SDR ramping; we just published new benchmark data you might find useful.”

Ahrefs’ B2B stats compilation also cites research showing that nearly half of SEOs view digital PR as the most effective tactic in 2025 and that high‑tier guest posts can cost $692–$957 on average. So you want to be picky about where you invest time and money-Ahrefs helps you do exactly that.

5.3 Avoid spam and wasted spend

Because you can see every backlink hitting your site in Ahrefs, you can also:

• Audit new links monthly for low‑quality directories, irrelevant sites, or obvious PBNs.
• Check the history of any domain a vendor offers you-DR, traffic trends, anchor text distribution.
• Disavow toxic links if needed, especially important in regulated industries.

This protects the authority you’ve earned and reduces the risk of a sudden algorithm hit wiping out rankings on key revenue pages.

6. Advanced Ahrefs Tactics for Today’s SERPs

Search isn’t what it was five years ago. AI Overviews, rich snippets, and rising zero‑click behavior change how many clicks you can realistically expect. But they don’t make SEO pointless-they just change the playbook.

6.1 Navigating AI Overviews and zero‑click searches

Ahrefs’ 2025 stats show that AI Overviews can reduce clicks to websites on affected queries by around 34.5%, and yet roughly 76% of AI Overview citations still come from URLs already ranking in the top 10 organic results. Translation: classic SEO fundamentals still determine whether you’re even in the conversation.

Use Ahrefs to:

1. In Keywords Explorer, look at the SERP overview for key terms and see which ones have AI Overviews (Ahrefs now highlights these and lets you expand them).
2. Prioritize:
• Queries with high business potential and no AI Overview yet
• Queries where AI Overviews exist but still send healthy traffic to organic listings
3. For AI‑impacted queries you must win, optimize your content to:
• Answer core questions succinctly near the top
• Use clear headings and lists
• Implement relevant schema (FAQ, HowTo, Product, etc.)

You’re aiming to both rank well and be among the sources AI systems like to cite.

6.2 Use Search Intent data to match content to buyers

Ahrefs’ Search Intent column is a gift for B2B marketers who need to support long, messy buying journeys.

For each target keyword, classify:

• Informational: “what is revenue operations,” “how to build SDR comp plan.” Great for early‑stage content and educational webinars.
• Commercial: “best SDR tools,” “sales engagement platforms for SaaS.” Perfect for comparison guides and mid‑funnel content.
• Transactional: “[tool] pricing,” “buy [category] software,” “[vendor] alternatives.” These should map to product, pricing, and competitive pages.

Once that’s mapped, your sales team knows exactly which content to send when:

• Cold outbound → link to informational pieces that agitate the right problem.
• Discovery follow‑up → link to commercial guides that frame your category.
• Late‑stage deals → link to transactional content like comparison pages, ROI calculators, and case studies.

6.3 Use the Lowest DR filter to find fast wins

If your site is relatively new or low‑authority, some keywords are simply out of reach for now. Ahrefs’ Lowest DR filter in the Organic Keywords report helps you find opportunities where weaker sites already rank.

Workflow:

1. In Site Explorer, pull your domain’s organic keywords.
2. Apply the Lowest DR filter to surface queries where a low‑authority site ranks in the top positions.
3. Layer on keyword difficulty and business potential.
4. Prioritize building or optimizing content for keywords where:
• DR of the weakest top‑ranking site is similar to or lower than yours
• Keyword difficulty is moderate
• Business potential is 2-3

This lets you stack early SEO wins and start feeding your sales team more inbound leads in months, not years.

7. Building a Repeatable Ahrefs‑Driven B2B SEO Operating Rhythm

One‑off audits and sporadic blog posts won’t move the needle. You need a simple, repeatable rhythm that keeps SEO aligned with sales.

Weekly rituals

• Check Rank Tracker for revenue keywords. Watch for sudden drops on terms tied to key pages (pricing, demo, industry). Investigate SERP changes and competitor moves.
• Scan Top Pages for anomalies. Any big traffic spikes or dips should trigger a quick review and, if positive, a chat with sales about how to leverage them.
• Share one SEO insight in the sales standup. A trending question, a new competitor page, or a content piece that’s spiking can all become fresh call/email angles.

Monthly rituals

• Run a Content Gap review. See which new terms competitors have started ranking for and decide which ones you need to respond to.
• Review landing pages by conversion. Pair Ahrefs traffic data with your analytics/CRM to see which pages feed the most meetings and revenue.
• Assess backlink growth. Use Ahrefs to monitor high‑value pages’ link profiles and plan 3-5 targeted outreach or PR actions.

Quarterly rituals

• Full Site Audit and clean‑up. Fix technical issues before they impact rankings or conversion.
• Content refresh sprint. Identify 5-10 high‑traffic, high‑value pages with declining rankings and update them with new stats, sharper CTAs, and internal links.
• ROI review. Compare organic vs outbound performance:
• Cost per opportunity
• Close rates
• Average deal size

Ahrefs’ B2B stats cite B2B SaaS SEO delivering around 702% average ROI with a 7‑month break‑even over a three‑year window. Bring numbers like that to your leadership team, alongside your own trends, and SEO suddenly looks like a serious growth lever instead of a nice‑to‑have.

How This Applies to Your Sales Team

Let’s bring this down to the people actually dialing and closing.

For SDR/BDR managers:

• Use Ahrefs’ keyword and Top Pages data to update call scripts quarterly. Make sure your reps are speaking in the same language prospects use in search.
• Give your team a short list of SEO‑driven content assets (guides, benchmarks, tools) mapped to common objections so they always have a relevant value resource to send.
• Prioritize territories and verticals where Ahrefs shows growing search demand but relatively weak competition.

For AEs:

• Before a discovery call with a big account, drop their domain into Site Explorer. See what topics they publish on and which keywords their content ranks for. Use that intel to tailor your questions and demos.
• When you hear new objections or use cases on calls, feed them back to marketing so they can research corresponding keywords in Ahrefs and potentially build content around them.

For RevOps and revenue leaders:

• Integrate high‑level Ahrefs metrics (organic traffic to key pages, ranking positions for core terms) into your revenue dashboards.
• Correlate ranking improvements with changes in inbound meetings and opportunities so you can make informed budget tradeoffs between SEO, paid, and outbound.

Imagine a mid‑market cybersecurity vendor:

• Marketing uses Ahrefs to discover rising interest in “SOC 2 automation for fintech.”
• They publish a series of articles and a comparison page optimized for that cluster.
• Ahrefs shows the pages climbing into the top 5 for several high‑intent keywords.
• SDRs refresh messaging to call out SOC 2 automation pains specifically in fintech.
• Within a quarter, inbound demo requests for fintech accounts jump, and outbound connect rates improve because messaging is tuned to what buyers are actually researching.

That’s the loop you’re aiming for-Ahrefs informing strategy, and sales execution amplifying the impact.

Conclusion + Next Steps

B2B SEO isn’t a side project; it’s one of the few channels that can consistently put your brand in front of the right buyers months before they ever fill out a form. Tools like Ahrefs give you unfair visibility into what those buyers search for, how competitors are winning them, and where your own site is leaking opportunity.

But the real magic happens when you treat Ahrefs as a revenue platform, not just an SEO console:

• You choose keywords based on business potential.
• You build content that feeds SDR scripts and AE follow‑ups.
• You protect and grow your organic presence with continuous technical monitoring.
• You let data, not gut feel, guide which topics and markets you chase.

If you want to get moving quickly, here’s a simple starting plan:

1. Run a baseline audit. Use Site Explorer, Site Audit, and Rank Tracker to document where you stand on traffic, keywords, and technical health.
2. Build a revenue keyword list. Involve SDRs and AEs in creating and scoring your first 100-200 target keywords.
3. Ship one high‑intent asset per month. Start with the keywords that have the highest business potential and realistic difficulty.
4. Wire SEO into sales. Update scripts and sequences with insights and links from your top performing pages.
5. Decide what to own vs. outsource. If your team is already stretched, pair Ahrefs with partners who live in the tool daily and can translate its data into booked meetings-whether that’s an SEO specialist, an SDR outsourcing partner like SalesHive, or both.

Do that consistently for 6-12 months, and Ahrefs stops being “another tab in marketing’s browser.” It becomes a core part of how your company finds, educates, and closes the right B2B buyers-at scale.