Keyword mapping is one of the processes of designating keywords for relevant pages on your site. This is what your optimization strategy has to begin with and what you must practice regularly to enrich and enhance your site with brand new anchor texts and keywords as time passes.
As a result, let’s quickly begin the work and get down to business. In order to make the keyword mapping guide more accessible, we’re going to list down some of the most practical steps.
Why do keyword mapping?
If you did not know, keyword mapping is a must for any SEO or site owner, as it can assist you in refining your content approach in the stated ways:
- Find keyword gaps – Your website needs to administer gaps. But, what do we mean by gaps? Your site might fall behind in ranking because your content strategy does not cover the necessary keywords. In such a case, keyword mapping may help you find all the missing keyword opportunities and then target them with specific and relevant pages. You can even create new pages, for that matter.
- Look for keyword overlap. Utilizing similar keywords on various pages might lead to rank cannibalization and duplicate content problems. Moreover, keyword mapping can help you assign some keywords to specific target pages that don’t conflict with each other.
- Streamline and stabilize internal linking. In case your keywords are correctly organized and mapped to specific web pages, you can effectively manage internal link-building strategies, bringing every other related page together.
https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/keyword-research-icon-gm930368970-255076143?phrase=keyword
Step 1. Build a comprehensive list of target keywords.
Keyword mapping begins with proper keyword research. This is done to find all the keywords already ranking and new keywords you would want to target. This does not end here. You can even check which keywords are already bringing traffic with Google Search Console and locate new keyword strategies with Google Analytics.
Experts recommend that you launch a tool and create projects for your website. Post that, go for keyword research and use a ranking keyword console. Once you are over that, find the keywords that your website does not rank for yet. However, make sure that your keyword strategy is at par. For instance, consider using some of your favorite keywords. Besides, use related searches to observe what other users search on Google. Moving on, in keyword research, you can enter some seed keywords and click on the search button to get a comprehensive list of Google searches.
Let’s move to TF-IDF Explorer. This platform guides you through some of the most used keywords of top SERPs. While at it, check its IDF explorer and enter some of your seed keywords. Once done, it will offer you a comprehensive list of keywords used by your competitors. If you look at the keywords you have accumulated, you’ll notice that a few of them are junk. Their search volumes are low or irrelevant. This way, you’ll be able to clean and filter the keywords to exclude useless ones.
Step 2. Group every keyword by topic
As you have collected your keywords, sorting them into specific groups is essential to assign them further to target pages. To perform this, consider using a keyword map module of rank trackers to move all the keywords separately. While in the keyword sandbox module, right-click the folder that says All Keywords and select Move To Rank Tracking.
Semantic similarity
This is one of the topics on which your keyword groups must be based. Ideally, the objective should be to sort all the keywords into smaller groups of word synonyms and then target every group with a single page. Such a process needs plenty of time-consuming manual labor. However, you can make it straightforward and begin with Rank Tracker’s automated grouping processes. Besides, there’s an essential factor you must know. If your keywords have already been grouped by the URLs of the banking web pages, you’ll still regroup them for your convenience.
Search intent
After your topic groups are ready and set, you’ll come across that some of these groups have conflicting search intent. And while Google tends to pick different results for multiple search intents, there is no way for you to rank for all such conflicting intents with a single web page. As a result, you’d have to develop smaller keyword groupings based on the search intent of keywords.
Typically, there are 4 types of search intents.
- Navigational
- Informational
- Commercial investigation
- Transactional
Informational keywords can trigger how-to’s and guides, investigational ones are ideal for listicles, and transactional ones suit every product page. Remember, search intents of particular keywords are signalized with unique search intent markers. Here’s a list you can refer to.
Transactional
- buy
- for sale
- buy online
- where to buy
- where can I buy
- coupon
- coupon code
- where to shop for
- in stock
- on sale
- discount
- for cheap
- promo
- promo code
- overstock
- pre-owned
- with PayPal
- Cheap
- review
- special
- with credit card
- cheapest
- Clearance
Informational
- where to
- what is
- best ways to
- I need to
- how can
- how do
- ways to
- how
- how to
- how to … with …
- how do I
- how do you
- how to make
- how to build
- how to get rid of
- guide
- tutorial
- what to
Investigational
- comparison
- best
- compare
- compare with
- alternatives
- for children
- best of
- alternative
- for guys
- for couples
- for girls
- for newbies
- for kids
- for men
- for women
- for seniors
- for students
- review
- reviews
Step 3. Double-check every search intent on SERPs.
Well, you could have stopped grouping your keywords in the previous step. However, it may happen that a search engine giant like Google would suggest multiple search results for keywords that seemingly belong to a similar group. Moreover, if you do not figure this out on time, you’ll keep targeting various intents with a single page. As a result, to ensure your keyword groupings are synonymic for search engines, consider figuring out and double-checking the SERPs.
Disclaimer: This can take plenty of time.
Let’s get back to our example. There’s a group named dryer balls that can feature 3 keywords simultaneously:
It seems like such keywords might trigger multiple search results. Hence they can’t be placed in similar groups. To perform this research, you must have a plugin to help extract and download organic URLs from SERP. You’ll also come across a count column comprising a function =COUNTIF(B:B,BX), counting how many instances the meaning in every BX line is observed throughout the B columns.
Step 4. Sort keyword groupings by difficulty
A few keywords are more seamless to rank than others. Some can be placed on faraway web pages and still get you good traffic volumes. However, some require high-authority pages to bring any at all. As a result, you must consider keyword difficulty while assigning the keyword groups to pages.
The key is to divide keywords into three difficulty levels. So, how do you perform such an action? You can proceed to the Target Keyword section and click on the Keyword Map of the Rank Tracker. Once done, you will have a group with the overall keyword score. Let’s proceed further. A rank tracker does not allow you to label a group with tags. You must rename keyword groups by adding numbers against their names as a workaround. In such a case, assign mark 1 to every keyword group with scores around 61.
Step 5. Import keywords
Consider importing keywords to pages manually. You could either try it on Google Sheets or in an old Excel format. But, here, it might take a bit of time. Try adding another tool, such as WebSite Auditor, to speed it up. The application lets you import every keyword found in Rank Tracker. Moreover, it allows keyword mapping and research procedures much more quicker. Having said that, in WebSite Auditor, you could create a website project. Of course, you can always select adding keywords manually by entering them into the keyword field. The best thing is to import all the keywords from a CSV file.
Step 6. Map keywords to pages
Step 6 is to perform keyword mapping. Not only is it complex but also comprises several vital aspects. Remember, WebSite Auditor, tends to calculate a page’s relevance based on the keyword presence in the URL, meta description, title, description, OG title, and the keyword list that already ranks. But, it’s a machine, after all. And machines are prone to errors and mistakes. As a consequence, we must check the suggested pages manually. So, what should we consider?
Keywords’ and pages’ search intent
As already discussed, multiple keywords serve other search intents. That’s because they are utilized on various pages. This was the purpose experts named while grouping the words like blog, review, etc., to understand what form of content you should assign against them. For example, use a keyword group with an informational intent marker. And here, a blog could rank for the query type.
Pages’ click depth
Did you know the click depth of a specific page tends to show how many steps users or Googlebot needs to reach it from your homepage? Knowing that the page closer to your homepage has relatively more external links and internal link juice is essential. As a result, it would be wiser to place several complex keywords on such pages. As one of the keyword groups is challenging, your pages against them must be located on the surface. WebSite Auditor also suggests multiple pages that can be relevant for this group.
Page’s content
Likely, your website has no relevant pages for the 1 sandwich bag group of keywords. Moreover, it seems like the page is about sandwich bags. That’s why it’s better to proceed with your second URL.
Keyword cannibalization
It might occur that a single keyword group can be mapped to multiple pages. In such a case, if you do not do anything and optimize the pages for the same group of keywords, we’ll likely face traffic and keyword cannibalization. If you did not know, such a move would also result in lower SERP positions for every cannibalized page.
Step 7. Optimize the pages for mapped keywords
Once you map keyword groups to a specific page, ask the WebSite Auditor to analyze the content present on the page to observe how well it’s optimized. You can also use the content editor module to optimize the pages for mapped keywords. This tool tends to suggest optimal words for every specific page. Moreover, it also recommends what keywords to add and their numbers. Furthermore, the module will guide you through the topics you can select along with optimization alerts like missing alt texts or keyword absence in meta descriptions and titles.
To sum it up
Creating a thorough keyword map is not a straightforward job to perform. Besides, keyword mapping does not stop. It’s not something one does and forgets for good. Speaking of which, it is a never-ending and demanding yet rewarding process. In the end, you have to refer to a specific guide. But, in this case, it would be ideal to refer to this step-by-step guide to make the entire keyword mapping easier and quicker. So, what’s holding you back? Let’s get started without much further ado.
