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Keywords are the foundation of all successful SEO campaigns. An effective SEO campaign allows your website to rank high on search engines for keywords relevant to your business.
Keywords are terms or phrases users type on search engines. These terms or phrases should be found in your website content, from the articles and product descriptions to the images and videos. If the keywords you use are relevant to your business and what users are looking for, you have a better chance of getting found online even amid stiff competition.
But how do you know what users need and what language they use to find what they need? How do you determine the keywords to target? And how do you create the right content or blog that won’t compete with your main page but support it instead?
The answers lie in keyword mapping.
What is Keyword Mapping?
Keyword mapping is a strategy for choosing keywords that match your site’s structure. It maps out which keyword belongs to which page on your website so that you can optimize the page and create the necessary content for it.
This is an effective strategy for regular SEO and local SEO or businesses that are targeting location-specific keywords to enhance local reach.
How Do You Use Keyword Mapping for Your Content Strategy?
This process has three parts: keyword research, keyword mapping, and then the content marketing strategy itself.
We’ll first walk you through finding the keywords you want to target and then identify the page or URL that matches those keywords. There are many ways to do keyword mapping. You can adjust and change any part of these steps to suit your needs.
Step 1. Keyword Research
The first step is to determine the keywords you want your website to rank for. List as many terms, phrases or topics related to your brand, and you want to focus on. How do you go about it?
Ask the following:
- Which products or services do you have?
- What are your potential customers looking for?
- Which keywords are your competitors ranking for?
Next, sort them out and group them together.
Once you have identified the main category of your brand, break it down into smaller topics. List all potential topics related to your brand and what you want to focus on.
For example, a digital marketing agency in California may want to explore topics, like:
- Web design services
- Social media services
- SEO services
Put yourself in the customers’ shoes and think about the topics they are likely to search for. These topics can then later be broken down into specific keywords.
Use the following keyword research tools.
Google Keyword Planner
One of the most popular keyword research tools, Google’s keyword planner lets you narrow down your choices by targeting or filtering results. It also shows a keyword’s historical statistics, such as search volume and seasonal performance.
With Google’s Keyword Planner, you can easily organize your keyword ideas by location, device, or mobile trends.
SEMrush
Another popular keyword research tool, SEMRush, helps find keywords for which your website and your competitors’ websites are ranking. It provides valuable data, such as keyword difficulty, volume, trends, competitors ranking for a specific keyword, cost-per-click (CPC) stats, and the number of results.
The tool can also help you assess keyword insights for both mobile and desktop indexes. They offer a paid service, but they have a 7-day free trial and different pricing plans for every type of business.
SpyFu
Spyfu is known as a powerful tool for competitor analysis. You can use SpyFu to monitor competitors’ keywords, including every keyword they have bought on Google and every ad variation they have run in the last 13 years.
Step 2. Categorize Keywords According to Search Intent
After listing your keywords, group them according to search intent. Some call these keyword groups keyword clusters. This way, you could then categorize keywords that answer the same query and not have them sprinkled across your website.
Randomly inserting popular keywords isn’t enough to compete on search results and attract leads. Google’s algorithms are starting to accurately assess and understand search intent by comparing search terms with users’ questions.
Let’s use our previous example: “digital marketing agency in California.” Related keywords involve searches, like “digital marketing company in California,” “digital marketing agency online,” “best digital marketing agency Los Angeles.” These keywords are similar and would match the homepage the best. Grouping them all makes a lot of sense.
Search intent is the reason behind a user’s query. Several factors guide a user’s search habits: needs, wants, location, and other key demographics.
Here are the most common types of search intent:
- Commercial – The user aims to look at products and compare prices. They want to discover the option that best matches their specific needs.
- Informational – The searcher aims to learn more (i.e., find information), such as the specs of a laptop or travel tips.
- Navigational – The user intends to look for a specific location or website on the internet.
- Transactional – The user is intending to perform an activity, such as book a flight or buy a ticket to a movie.
- Local – The user is looking for business or service locally. This could be a restaurant, an auto shop, or a clinic.
To create the best content optimized for the user and search engines, you must understand not just how but also why users search for products and information. Then you can create more helpful content that’s also packed with the right keywords to let search engines properly index and rank it.
Here’s an example of what your sheet should look like:
Step 3. Match the Keywords to the Designated Page or URL
After grouping the keywords, assign them to the selected page. Create subdirectories if necessary. This is especially important for retail websites selling hundreds of products. For example, a business selling a variety of shoes or bags.
In the case of this digital marketing company, the sheet should look like this:
For existing websites, relocate keywords or phrases once you have determined which keywords work best for your pages.
Step 4. Use Your Keyword Groups or Clusters
Once you have your keywords grouped or clustered together, they will provide you with a roadmap or framework for how you’ll create, organize, optimize the content on your website. They will also help give you ideas about what articles to produce for your blogs.
To improve your website pages’ ranking and page authority, create blogs that support the primary keywords you have chosen.
Blogs can then target informational keywords or long-tail keyword phrases. You can also create articles about questions related to your main keywords.
Before creating blog content, you must first organize your main pages and manage your site in a structure that makes sense. This means that keywords for the homepage, subdirectories, and content pages should have been appropriately allocated.
Create new sheets for each page or subdirectories to keep everything accessible and organized.
Is Keyword Mapping Worth All the Work?
Keyword mapping does take a lot of work. Then, content creation and optimization will require periodic updates to stay competitive. This is a more advanced SEO method that will give your business an advantage over your competitors.
Advances in technology have given search engines like Google a greater understanding of users’ search intent, so you need to keep up. Google invests time and money into training their natural language processing models to understand the slightest difference in content and give searchers the best information they seek.
With more and more businesses going online, you must invest time, knowledge, energy, and resources to stay ahead. The results will be worth it.
Itamar Gero is the founder of SEO Reseller, a global digital marketing solutions provider that empowers agencies and their local clients worldwide. When he isn’t working, he’s traveling the world, meditating, or dreaming (in code).