Last updated: October 29, 2026
Buyers are describing problems in longer sentences than keyword tools were built for. In a May 19, 2026 update marking a year of its AI search mode in the US, a major search engine said the average search there "is triple the length of a traditional Search query." It also said it's seeing growth in both short and long queries in that mode.
That matters if you're building a software category nobody has named yet. Your buyers won't type your category name, because they don't know it. They'll type their problem, in full sentences, often into an AI assistant. Keyword tools show zero volume for your category term, and they'll keep showing zero long after people start looking for what you sell.
My take: for a new category, chase the problem first and the name second, and use the same name everywhere from day one. The first ten pages you publish should answer the questions people ask before they know a category exists. Do that and you can show up in AI answers while your keyword tool still shows zero.
Two limits on that opening figure. It's Google's own statement about AI Mode, with no sample size or method given, and it covers the US only. It also spans AI Mode's first year, so some of the data is older than a year by now. Treat it as a direction of travel.
For how answer engines choose sources, see the AEO pillar guide. This post covers only the case where your category term has little or no measurable search volume.
Zero volume isn't zero demand
Keyword tools estimate volume from past searches for a specific string. A new category term has no past, so it shows zero. That tells you about the string, not about the demand.
The demand usually exists in three other forms:
Problem searches. "How to [do the job your product does] without [the painful current method]."
Workaround searches. "[Spreadsheet or legacy tool] template for [job]" or "[legacy tool] alternative for [use case]."
Adjacent category searches. Buyers look for the nearest category they do know, such as "[existing category] for [new use case]."
Before you write anything, collect real language. Read 20 recent sales call transcripts and note how prospects describe the problem before your rep names the category. Read support tickets from new customers. Look at community threads where your buyers ask for help. The phrases that repeat are your early keywords, even if a tool shows them as tiny.
Sort what you collect into a simple sheet with three columns: the exact phrase, where you heard it and how often it came up. After a few weeks you'll see which descriptions of the problem are common and which belong to one unusually articulate prospect. Write for the common ones. That sheet also becomes your briefing document for every page in the next section, so writers start from buyer language rather than your positioning deck.
Longer queries help you here. A buyer typing a three-sentence description of their situation into an AI search box is describing your category without naming it. If your pages describe that situation in the same words, you're a candidate source.
Choose the category name, and defend it
You'll be tempted to invent a clever name. Resist that unless you have the budget to teach the market a new word.
A good category name for SEO has three qualities. It's descriptive, so a buyer can guess what it means on first read. It's close to language buyers already use, ideally the phrase that came up most in your sales calls. And it's specific enough that a page about it can't be confused with an existing category.
Once you choose, be relentless about consistency. Use the exact same name:
In your home page headline and title tag.
In your product page, pricing page and documentation.
In your review site profiles. On G2, for example, a product's categories come from G2's own taxonomy, and its product information documentation, updated August 26, 2026, describes a category creation request that G2's Market Research team reviews when no existing category fits.
In press releases, partner pages, analyst briefings and conference talks.
In what your founders and sales team say out loud.
Inconsistency is one of the easiest ways for a new category to fail in search. If the home page says one thing, the docs another and the founder's posts a third, nobody, human or AI, can connect them. An assistant asked about the category will find three weak signals instead of one strong one.
Also decide how you'll handle the nearest existing category. Usually the right answer is to explain the relationship directly: "[Your category] is like [existing category], but for [difference]." That sentence gives buyers and AI systems a bridge from what they know to what you've built.
The first ten pages
Ten pages that cover the journey from "I have a problem" to "this is the product for it" will do more than a hundred posts.
A category definition page. "What is [category]?" Define it in the first sentence, then explain who needs it, what it replaces and how it differs from the nearest known category.
A problem page. Describe the painful current situation in your buyers' words, with the costs they mention on calls. This is the page that matches long, descriptive searches.
A "why the old way fails" page. Explain specifically why the workaround, whether that's spreadsheets, a legacy tool or an internal build, breaks down.
A "[category] vs [nearest existing category]" page. Buyers will ask this. Answer it honestly, including when the existing category is the better fit. See the guide to comparison pages for structure.
A buyer's guide. What to look for when evaluating [category] tools, written so it's useful even before competitors exist.
A use-case page for your strongest segment.
A second use-case page for your next segment.
A how-it-works page, with plain-language steps and a diagram described in text.
A pricing or "what it costs" page. Even a range or a pricing model explanation helps; assistants get asked about cost constantly.
A glossary of the terms you've introduced, each defined in a sentence or two.
Write each page so that the key sentences can stand alone. An answer engine should be able to lift "[Category] is [definition]" from page one and "[Category] differs from [existing category] because [reason]" from page four without needing the surrounding paragraphs.
Interlink them tightly. Every page should link to the definition page with the exact category name as anchor text, and the definition page should link out to each of the others.
How to write the definition page
The definition page carries more weight than any other page on a new-category site, so give it extra care.
Open with a single sentence that defines the category and could be quoted on its own: "[Category] is [type of software] that helps [audience] [do the job] by [how it works]." Avoid adjectives in that sentence. It should read like a dictionary entry, not a tagline.
Follow it with three short sections. Who it's for, described by role and situation rather than company size alone. What it replaces, naming the old method in the buyer's words. How it differs from the nearest known category, in two or three concrete points.
Then add the details people ask next: the main capabilities a [category] tool should have, a typical rollout path, and roughly what it costs, even if that's a pricing model rather than a number. Close with a dated "last updated" line and links to the other nine pages.
Keep the page vendor-neutral where you can. A definition that reads as a product pitch is less likely to be trusted by readers, and less likely to be quoted as a definition. Mention your own product once, near the end, as one example of the category.
Get into AI answers before the volume arrives
People ask AI assistants about new products and ideas all the time. When your category is new, few sources describe it. That's a rare advantage: the sources that exist get used.
Four practical moves help.
Be the definition. Make sure the clearest, most complete definition of your category on the web sits on your domain, as plain text, with a date.
Get described elsewhere in the same words. A category that only you describe looks like marketing. A guest article, a podcast transcript, a partner's blog or an analyst note that uses your exact category name, and explains it the same way, gives AI systems corroboration.
Answer the questions assistants get. Run prompts like "How do I [solve the problem] without [old method]?" and "What tools help with [problem]?" through the assistants your buyers use. Note which sources appear. If none of them describe your approach, that's a gap your pages can fill. The guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT covers how one assistant chooses what to recommend.
Keep facts current. A new category changes fast. When your positioning, pricing model or feature set shifts, update the definition page first, because it's the one most likely to be quoted.
If you're an early-stage company working on this, the startup SEO agency page outlines how that work is usually scoped.
Signals to watch
Search volume will be the last signal to move. Watch these instead.
Search Console impressions for the category term. Even with zero estimated volume, Search Console shows actual impressions. A count that rises month over month, however small, is the earliest proof that people are searching.
Impressions for problem phrases. Track the long, descriptive queries that bring people to your problem page. Their growth tells you the problem is being searched for, whatever it's called.
Branded plus category searches. Queries such as "[your brand] [category]" or "[category] tools" suggest the name is catching on.
AI answer presence. Run a fixed set of prompts monthly and record whether your category name appears in answers, whether it's defined correctly and whether your site is cited. There's a fuller method for running these checks in the piece on measuring visibility in AI search.
Sales call language. Ask reps to note when a prospect uses the category name unprompted. When that starts happening, the name is spreading.
Competitor adoption. When the first competitor uses your category name, it's annoying and also a sign of success. It means the term is becoming a category rather than a slogan.
What to do first, by situation
You haven't chosen a name yet. Mine 20 sales calls for the phrase buyers use most, test two or three candidates with prospects, and pick the most descriptive one.
You've chosen a name but use it inconsistently. Audit every public page, profile and deck. Fix the home page, product page and review profiles first.
You have the name and the pages, but no AI presence. Work on corroboration: get two or three credible third parties to describe the category in the same words.
Your category is starting to get searched. Now build out supporting content around the definition page, and consider a broader B2B SaaS SEO plan.
What to watch out for
Inventing jargon nobody understands. A clever name that needs a paragraph of explanation will lose to a plain one.
Waiting for volume before publishing. By the time a keyword tool shows volume, the early definitions are already written, possibly by someone else.
Overclaiming. "The first and only [category] platform" invites skepticism from buyers and gives assistants a claim they may not repeat. Describe what you do.
Ignoring the existing category. Buyers search for what they know. If you never mention the nearest known category, you miss the people looking there.
Flooding the site with thin pages. Publishing dozens of near-identical "[category] for [industry]" pages risks Google's scaled content abuse policy. Ten strong pages beat a hundred thin ones.
Final thoughts
A new category starts with no search volume and an advantage that's easy to overlook: almost nobody else is describing it. If you name it plainly, use the name everywhere and publish the ten pages that explain it, you give search engines and AI assistants a clear reference to draw on.
Volume will come later, if the category is real. Your job until then is to make sure that when people describe the problem in their own long, specific words, your pages are the ones that answer.