Buyer keywords are the search terms people type when they are close to paying, not when they are still learning. "Best CRM for a two person sales team" is one. "What is a CRM" is not. The difference is worth more than any ranking trick, because one query brings you a reader and the other brings you a buyer.
I run a LinkedIn prospecting agency and I am building an outbound product, so I care about these words in two places: on our pages, and in the sentences prospects write on LinkedIn. The same vocabulary works in both.
Below: the intent tiers, a copy ready list sorted by tier, the method to find the ones specific to your market, and the mistake that wastes most of the effort.
What makes a keyword a buyer keyword
Three ingredients, and you usually need at least two.
A commercial modifier. Buy, pricing, cost, quote, demo, trial, alternatives, vs, best, top, review, near me. The modifier is what shifts a topic into a transaction.
A specific product or category. "Software" is a topic. "LinkedIn automation tool for agencies" is a purchase. Specificity is what makes a low volume term worth more than a high volume one.
A qualifier that matches your offer. Team size, market, budget, geography, integration. "CRM with LinkedIn integration" tells you what the person already uses and what they expect from you.
A term that has all three, like "HeyReach alternative for small teams", has almost no volume and converts better than anything else on your site. That trade is the whole game in B2B: volume is a vanity metric when your total market is a few thousand companies.
The four intent tiers
Ranking terms by tier is faster than ranking them by volume, and it tells you what the page needs to do.
| Tier | Intent | Example | What the page must do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactional | Ready to pay | "buy sales navigator seats", "linkedin automation pricing" | Show the price, make the next step obvious |
| Commercial | Comparing options | "best intent data providers", "hubspot vs pipedrive" | Compare honestly, including where you lose |
| Problem aware | Looking for a fix | "how to automate linkedin outreach" | Solve it in the page, then show the tool |
| Informational | Learning | "what is buyer intent" | Define, then link to the commercial page |
Most teams write for the bottom row and wonder why traffic does not convert. Start at the top and work down. Transactional and commercial pages are also the ones a competitor cannot easily copy, because they need real product knowledge and a real opinion.
A buyer keywords list you can copy
Take these patterns and drop your category into the brackets. Each group is ordered by how close the searcher is to a decision.
Ready to buy
- buy [product]
- [product] pricing
- [product] cost per user
- [product] price list
- how much does [product] cost
- [product] free trial
- [product] demo
- [product] discount
- [product] annual plan
- [category] quote
Comparing vendors
- best [category] tools
- top [category] software
- [competitor] alternatives
- alternative to [competitor]
- [competitor] vs [competitor]
- [category] comparison
- [competitor] review
- [competitor] pricing explained
- is [competitor] worth it
- [category] for [segment], for example "for agencies", "for startups", "for solo founders"
Ready to switch
- [competitor] cancel subscription
- [competitor] not working
- migrate from [competitor]
- [competitor] competitors
- cheaper than [competitor]
- [competitor] complaints
Looking for a fix
- how to automate [task]
- [task] template
- [task] checklist
- best way to [task]
- [task] software for small teams
- [category] with [integration] integration
- [category] api
Learning, still useful
- what is [category]
- [category] meaning
- [category] examples
- [category] benefits
- types of [category]
The "ready to switch" group is the one people forget. Someone searching "cancel" or "not working" for a competitor is already unhappy, and the page that meets them there costs almost nothing to write.
How to find the buyer intent keywords in your own market
Five sources, in the order I use them.
1. Your Search Console. Filter queries by the modifiers above. If a term already brings impressions and no clicks, you have a page to fix, not a page to write.
2. Your competitors' page titles. Their comparison and pricing pages tell you which terms are worth defending. If three competitors all published "X vs Y", it converts for them.
3. Sales calls and support tickets. Write down the exact phrasing prospects use for their problem. Buyers rarely use the category name the industry uses. They say "stop chasing people manually", not "outbound orchestration".
4. Review sites and communities. The compare pages on review sites, and the "recommend an alternative to" threads, are pure purchase vocabulary. Bombora made the same point about paid search in its buyer intent keywords primer.
5. Autocomplete and related searches. Type your category plus "for", "vs", "alternative", "pricing" and read what Google suggests. That is a free list of terms people actually type.
Then sort what you found into the four tiers above, and write from the top down.
Which page each tier deserves
A term is only useful once it has a page shaped for it. Four shapes cover almost everything in B2B.
A pricing term gets your pricing page, with the number visible and no form in front of it. Hiding the price to capture a lead loses the visitor who was ready to pay, and those are the rarest visitors you get.
A comparison or alternative term gets one page per competitor, not a single grouped page. Someone searching for one product wants a page about that product, and a page covering nine of them at once answers nobody in particular. Say where the competitor is better. The reader already knows, and admitting it is what makes the rest credible.
A "best tools" term gets a listicle with a real opinion and a real criterion for the order. Ranking by nothing is why most of those pages are ignored.
A problem aware term gets a how to page that solves the problem without the product, then mentions the product once at the end. If the page only works when the reader buys something, it is an ad.
Purchase keywords work in outbound too
This is the part most SEO articles miss, and the reason this page exists on an outbound product's site.
The words that indicate a purchase in search also indicate a purchase on LinkedIn. Someone writing "we are looking for a tool that does X", "any recommendation for Y", "we finally dropped Z" is publishing purchase intent in plain language, with their name and job title attached.
That makes purchasing keywords useful as monitoring terms, not just ranking terms:
- Watch job posts for the phrases that only appear when your problem exists. "Build outbound from scratch" in an SDR job ad is a strong one.
- Watch posts and comments in your niche for the modifiers: alternative, replacing, switching, recommendation, looking for.
- Watch your own profile visitors after you publish on the topic they are searching.
The message then writes itself, because you can quote the words they used. That is the same raw material vendors package and sell, which I covered in B2B intent data. I listed the signals I use week to week in how to identify buying signals, and compared the tools that detect them in intent data providers.
The three mistakes that waste the effort
Chasing volume. A term with 20 searches a month and a price in it beats a term with 2,000 and a definition in it. Check the search results before you commit: if the first page is all definitions, the term is informational whatever a tool labels it.
Writing the comparison page you would want to read. Buyers compare with a shortlist you did not choose. Cover the competitors they actually name in calls, including the ones you lose to.
Stuffing. Repeating a term does not move it. One clear title, one honest answer in the first paragraph, and a page that lets someone act. Google's own guidance on people first content is the short version: write the page for the person typing the term. Search engines and the assistants that summarize them reward the same thing, a direct answer near the top.
Where Sendable fits
Sendable, the product I am building with my cofounder, is the outbound half of what this page describes. It watches a set of signals (job posts, webinars, profile visits, first degree network activity), filters the profiles against the ideal customer you describe, and pushes the matching ones into a LinkedIn sequence you built in a visual workflow. Published pricing: $49 per sender per month from 1 to 4 senders, $39 from 5 to 25, $1,000 a month for unlimited senders.
What it does not do: rank your pages, track search terms, or send email. It is LinkedIn only. Keyword work stays with your site and your writing. See getsendable.io for what it covers.
FAQ
What are buyer keywords?
Buyer keywords are search terms that show someone is close to a purchase rather than still researching. They usually combine a commercial modifier such as buy, pricing, best, alternative or demo with a specific product or category, and often a qualifier like team size or an integration. They convert better than informational terms and carry far less volume.
What is the difference between buyer keywords and buyer intent keywords?
None in practice. Both name the same thing: terms that signal a purchase decision is near. Some teams use purchase keywords or purchasing keywords for the most transactional group, such as "buy" and "pricing", and keep buyer intent keywords for the wider set that includes comparisons and alternatives.
How do I build a buyer keywords list for B2B?
Pull the modifiers from this page, add your category and your competitors' names, then check each term against your Search Console, your competitors' page titles, and the language prospects use on calls. Sort the result into transactional, commercial, problem aware and informational, and write the top two tiers first.
Are low volume purchase keywords worth targeting?
Yes, in B2B they are usually the only ones worth targeting. If your market is a few thousand companies, a term with 20 monthly searches and clear purchase language can be worth more than a term with 2,000 searches from students and job seekers. Judge a term by who types it, not by the number next to it.
Can I use buyer keywords for outbound and not just SEO?
Yes. The same phrases show up in job ads, LinkedIn posts and comments. Watching for words like alternative, replacing, switching or recommendation in your niche gives you named people with visible intent, which is a better starting point for a first message than any static list.