How should an SEO professional do keyword mapping?

On-Page SEO

How should an SEO professional do keyword mapping?

Introduction

The process of allocating keywords to relevant pages on your website is known as keyword mapping. It's where your SEO strategy should start and what you should do on a daily basis to fill your website with new keywords as time goes on.

Are you interested in learning more about keyword mapping and how to perform it?


So let's understand it in detail. We will cover the following:

  • What is Keyword Mapping?
  • What Are the Advantages of Keyword Mapping?
  • How to perform Keyword Mapping
  • Why Keyword Mapping Is a Continuous Process 


What is Keyword Mapping?

The process of allocating or mapping keywords to specific pages on a website based on keyword analysis is known as keyword mapping. You can then make precise on-page SEO recommendations based on your mapping process to help make the page more relevant to the mapped keywords. This is a significant component of the first step of search engine optimization for a new website and serves as the foundation for what is supplied to the client for on-page SEO tasks.


Typically, keyword maps include one primary keyword for the page's primary topic and numerous secondary keywords for support. Most publications also cover page elements, including the page title, meta description, and a summary of what the page should cover. It is an important component of the content production process since it helps determine the ideal areas to put semantic keywords together in the most logical way possible.


Furthermore, keyword mapping is a fantastic technique to recall which terms are utilized in certain sections of your website and assists your copywriting staff in more efficiently formulating topics. You might argue that your keyword strategy is a treasure map for obtaining those coveted first-page SERP rankings.

While there is no fixed format for creating a keyword map, most digital marketers simply save the information in a spreadsheet and refer to it as needed during the content production process.


What Are the Advantages of Keyword Mapping?

In content marketing, you can't just publish any old article or blog post and expect it to drive tons of organic traffic to your website.

Instead, you must have a plan and organizational structure that is appropriate for your purposes.


Here are some of the advantages of keyword mapping:


It organizes your keywords

As you may have guessed, keyword mapping is critical to the content generation process.

It not only allows you to lay out the many phrases to determine which ones are primary and secondary, but it also prevents you from crossing over numerous times with other portions of your website.


It assists you in identifying gaps in your content marketing strategy

Have you ever created and published a ton of content on your website just to discover that you're missing out on a significant topic that you entirely overlooked?

This will not happen if you have a keyword map.

Instead, you'll see all of your themes nicely categorized and be able to detect locations where there are gaps or voids.


It eliminates duplicate content

Using a keyword map, your entire team can know where specific topics fit based on the keywords that coordinate with them.

Similarly, this prevents you from developing content pieces that duplicate a specific topic or compete in the SERPs for the same position – a practice known as keyword cannibalization.

Essentially, keyword organization saves time while providing little genuine advantage.


It makes communicating content writing expectations easier

Whether you're employing an outside copywriter or working with your in-house team, a keyword map makes it easier to express content objectives.

For example, understanding the core topic, primary keyword, and secondary keywords beforehand implies that your draft is more focused on the tone and structure you want.


How to perform Keyword Mapping

Although it may appear hard, keyword mapping is a rather straightforward process. The main disadvantage is that it requires some extra time to integrate into your workflow at first. However, having all of your content creation information in one place saves you time and effort later on, which is a great plus.

Here's a quick guide on navigating the keyword mapping process:


Step 1: Create Your Spreadsheet

Setting up your spreadsheet document is the first real step in generating a robust keyword map. This can be either Google Docs or Excel, depending on your preference, but we recommend the latter if team members are interacting.


Include the following headings:


  • Page ID 

This serves as a fast reminder of what your page is about.


  • URL

The URL of the page once it has been published.


  • Page Title

A keyword-rich page title.


  • H1 Tag

The piece's first title tag, which includes your primary keyword.


  • The primary keyword

The main keyword for the entire page.


  • Secondary or supplementary keywords

Any secondary or supplementary keywords, including semantic variants of the core keyword.


  • Page Summary 

A summary in a few sentences of what the page is about.


Based on whether you're mapping a new website or an existing one, the sections that show what the present items are and the places you propose making better-optimized adjustments may be required.


Step 2: Do Keyword Research

It is now time to conduct keyword research. It's up to you how you finish this process, but make sure you consider things like overall search traffic and keyword difficulty. To group these items, create a second spreadsheet document or page in your existing keyword map. Then decide which topics are sufficiently comparable to warrant inclusion on the same page.


These can be iterations of the same question or term, questions or terms that complement the same component of your niche, or anything else that makes sense for your niche. Before proceeding with the process, group them.


Step 3: Check for Current Relevance

The concept behind keyword mapping is that we will allocate these keywords to the sites that we want to rank for. To do so, for each keyword that we've identified, we'll need to ask, "What page is the most relevant to this particular keyword?"


There are generally groups of related keywords - variants of locations, plurals, synonyms, and so on - that get mapped to the same page, which should save you some time.

The first stage in assigning keywords is determining which pages are the most relevant to both you as a human and Google as a search engine. 


Step 4: Create a Keyword Map

Now is the moment to finalize your keyword strategy. Decide which ones should belong on which pages and enter them into the initial keyword mapping spreadsheet. Select a primary keyword and include it in the page title, meta description, H1 tag, and other elements. Fill up the fields for each page, making sure each one is distinct from the others in the outline.

You can also make a note of related sites for internal linking and content siloing if needed.


Step 5: Create and Publish Content

Finally, you should develop the content you've described in your keyword map. This is where you'll begin to see the fruits of your labor and understand why the entire procedure is critical to your success with SEO and organic traffic.


Step 6: Keep the map up to date.

Creating a keyword map and optimizing pages according to its design is only the first step; you must also update your keyword map on a regular basis and track its success over time. Keywords and their patterns vary over time, and your keyword map should do the same. That is why it is important to examine your keyword map on a regular basis, conduct further keyword research, seek fresh queries, and keep an eye on the competition.


There are also numerous tools available to assist you in tracking how your pages rank about the keywords from your map. You may also make unique lists for each category or even for each webpage to get a more detailed perspective of each group of keywords you're attempting to rank for.


Conclusion

Making a keyword map for your content is a terrific method to keep things organized, avoid keyword cannibalization, and ensure your entire team understands what goes on every page of your website. Spending the extra time now to complete one of these documents will save you a lot of work later on and may result in better overall SEO results.

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