What is Keyword Mapping?
Keyword mapping, as the name suggests, is the blueprint of your website based on keywords. You assign certain keywords to target on each page of your website, making the process the framework for your on-page optimization.
Without keyword mapping, you risk the chance of your on-page optimization not being as effective as it should be. In other words, the content you produce would not be strategically planned and wouldn’t get the most out of the targeted keywords.
How Can You Get Started with Keyword Mapping?
Before you start with keyword mapping there are two things you need to do:
Research keywords to target
You won’t know which keywords to target unless you do some research; research that is highly relevant to your industry. You need to find out which phrases potential customers use to find solutions like the ones you provide.
Most make the mistake of selecting the top 2-3 keywords and start optimizing for them. Instead, you should have a list of keywords that include head and long-tail keywords to target within your content.
The more keywords you plan on targeting, the better. But don’t go overboard, and start off by selecting around 50 keywords. Your list can be however long you like, but when you start, pick the main 10-15 keywords to target. While some marketers say you can go up to 20 keywords per page, with time, you can mix in the rest as you further develop your content through your blog.
Determine the Relevance of Each Keyword
Since you will be assigning keywords to specific pages, you want to determine how relevant each keyword is to a page on your website. You will have some keywords that vary in position or are synonyms of one another, and so pairing them and using them on the same page is considered to be ideal.
To determine the assignment of the keywords, you need to put yourself in the customers’ shoes and imagine how they would search for your services on Google. For example, an online marketing firm looking to optimize for the keyword “link building” would have a separate page on the website highlighting the service. The keyword would be used within the content along with other long-tail keywords that are relevant.
You don’t always have to have specific pages to target keywords for services, but most online businesses do. Doing so allows them to target numerous keywords related to the main head keyword within the same page, increasing the chance they’ll rank higher for their targeted keywords.
Prepare Your Mapping Document
Once you have your keywords picked out and have determined which pages they should be utilized on, it’s time to document it. Excel is a good tool to aid in the mapping. In terms of headers, something such as the example below works well, with the headers of Page ID, URL, and Mapped Keywords being the important parts:
This particular document will then serve as the main foundation of the content that will be written on each page of your website. With the keywords selected, you can now write content incorporating them.
The Importance of Keyword Mapping
You might think that keyword mapping seems like a task that doesn’t seem useful and will just take up more time. After all, once you know the keywords you need to use, you should just use them as you like, right? Well, what keyword mapping actually does is:
- It serves as the backbone of your digital marketing strategy. It allows you to map out your website and have pages optimized for specific head keywords and others that are closely related to them
- It provides your website content with a sense of direction. Content is important for a website, not just for SEO but also for providing customers with relevant information on each page that they land on
- Keyword research allows you to develop a marketing strategy that is data-driven since you use data on the most commonly used keywords to create a base for your list of keywords. Data-driven culture and strategy are important in having a strategy that is more effective, allowing you to not just pick the right keywords but use them in a manner that lets you beat the competition on search engines
- It directs customers to the page where they can get all the information related to the specific keywords they search. This means they don’t have to navigate through your website going page to page to find the information they need. The search engine will direct them to the right page from the start
- The process of keyword mapping also shows where your website currently stands in comparison to your competition, aiding in determining the proper strategy to help overtake the competition
- It links keywords that are closely related, meaning you can optimize your content for numerous keywords within one post, developing content that is more relevant and effective in terms of SEO.
Conclusion
Don’t take keyword mapping lightly. It is a process that organizes your marketing strategy, in terms of content. It also helps you identify the right keywords to target within each page of your website, making your content more relevant for users while also improving your website’s on-page optimization.