Keyword mapping helps organize keywords and pages. It solves ranking issues and enriches your website with many new keywords. With a bit of thoughtful planning, you can achieve a lot of additional free traffic that you would otherwise miss out on.
What is Keyword Mapping in SEO?
Keyword mapping is the process of assigning keywords to relevant pages on a website. As a result of such planning, you will have keywords associated with URLs that are further grouped into thematic clusters. Overall, they help keep all your site’s content organized and properly optimized.
For example, you have already collected the necessary keywords that you are trying to rank for, and now you have a list of keywords and a list of web pages. What you need to do next is to pair the two together!
And that is exactly what a keyword map is. In its most basic form, it is a huge spreadsheet divided into columns, with keywords and pages arranged to be managed. Keyword mapping is what your SEO strategy should start with if you really want to make your optimization efforts pay off.
Now that we have an idea of what keyword mapping is, let’s see why this is a must-have for any SEO or website owner. In general, mapping SEO keywords can help you refine your content strategy in the following ways.
1. Prevent Keyword Cannibalization
By targeting the same keywords across multiple pages, you might have different URLs competing for the same rankings. Moreover, similar keywords across multiple pages can lead to full or partial duplication issues, and that’s not what anyone would want for their site. Keyword mapping helps effectively assign keywords to unique landing pages so they don’t conflict with each other.
2. Discover Content Gaps
A website might lag in rankings simply because the chosen digital marketing strategy doesn’t cover all the necessary keywords. Keyword mapping helps find those missing keywords and target them with relevant pages or create new ones.
3. Analyze Online Performance
A keyword map provides the most complete view possible of your pages’ performance. You can see not only how well each page ranks but for exactly which keywords it should be ranking.
4. Prioritize Optimization Efforts
Pages and keywords are not equal. By seeing all the data laid out conveniently in one place, pages matched with their keywords, along with SEO statistics, you can better prioritize your efforts. A good keyword map will reveal what needs to be optimized immediately and what can be postponed.
5. Streamline Internal Linking
If keywords are properly organized and mapped to their corresponding web pages, you’ll be able to effectively organize internal linking, bringing related content together. Such linking solidifies site structure, improves user experience, and enhances many other ranking-conducive factors.
In the long run, a consistent and ongoing keyword mapping process will help you monitor SEO progress and spot weaknesses in your current keyword strategy.
There are many keyword mapping tools with a specific focus on content mapping, website URL mapping, and so on. You can manually map your keywords to pages in Google Sheets or good old Excel. But that might take too much time with thousands of keywords on your list.
SEO PowerSuite has a built-in keyword mapper in two core tools of the suite: Rank Tracker and Website Auditor. These tools are built for different purposes, but they both share the same keyword mapping features and logic and together amplify the effectiveness of each. Here’s how to use each tool and perform keyword mapping in a unified workflow.
Rank Tracker is useful for checking organic rankings and doing keyword research. It allows you to map keywords to URLs to monitor the correctness of your optimization efforts.
Are the right landing pages ranking for target queries? Are your pages not conflicting? Are you getting all the organic traffic you can? You can answer all these questions with the help of the keyword map in Rank Tracker. So, let’s see how to use it.
This step requires Rank Tracker
Keyword mapping starts with proper keyword research, and the first thing to do is find all the keywords you are already ranking for. You can check which keywords are already bringing you organic traffic with Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Meanwhile, Rank Tracker lets you collect all the data in one place faster.
Once a project for your website is created, the tool discovers all the keywords your site ranks for in the top 50 search results. These search terms are automatically displayed in the Target Keywords module.
[img class=”wp-image-24359″ src=”https://www.fullpress.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1findrankingkeywords.png” alt=”Rank tracking section with keywords your site already ranks for” width=”900″ height=”314″ /] Rank tracking section with keywords your site already ranks forHere, the tool provides basic query information: search volume, Google ranking, and ranking URL. This is where the keyword mapping process can begin: when you see an important keyword, right-click on it and select the Map to landing page option.
[img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-24362″ src=”https://www.fullpress.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2maptherankingpagetothekeyword.png” alt=”2+map+the+ranking+page+to+the+keyword” width=”700″ height=”508″ /]
From the context menu, you can choose to assign the currently ranking URL.
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Now, the term has been assigned as a target keyword to the URL that the search engine detects as relevant to the query.
This step requires Rank Tracker
Next comes thorough keyword research: you need to find new keywords for which the website doesn’t rank yet but that are worth adding to your SEO strategy.
Rank Tracker’s keyword research can help you pull tons of profitable search terms. The tool contains nine popular methods for finding keywords with over 20 built-in search engine options.
The Ranking Keywords section displays the best keywords your competitors rank for (and if you don’t know who your competitors are yet, you can quickly find them in the Competitor Research module).
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Autocompletion tools show what users search for most frequently on Google (or Amazon or YouTube), which is perfect for identifying great long-tail keywords. Related Searches show what other terms can be related to the seed term. This way, you can expand your content by covering more topics related to the main one.
TF-IDF Explorer analyzes how competitors use certain keywords in their content. This is how you can discover unexpected ideas and best optimize your content.
All discovered keywords are stored in the Keyword Sandbox. This is where you select irrelevant keywords and decide what to add to your tracking module.
I won’t go into great detail here, as this detailed keyword research guide outlines the entire process step by step. However, take note of some useful tips.
Tip 1: Sort out Useless Keywords from the Visible Workspace
Some of the discovered terms are pretty poor: search volumes are too low, or the keywords are simply irrelevant. Therefore, you can bulk exclude useless results from the keyword list.
In Keyword Sandbox, hit the filter icon in the top right and add filters to exclude keywords that are unlikely to bring traffic: for example, leave only queries with # of searches > more than > 10. You can also filter keywords by words, number of words, keyword length, virtually any property you might find useful for sorting your keywords.
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Tip 2: Use Tags to Classify Your Content
A useful feature in Rank Tracker is to tag keywords with tags: it can be any word that comes to your mind to label your queries. Some tags are created automatically: for example, mentioning where you found the keyword (e.g., manually added or picked from the Keyword Research sandbox).
In tags, you can tag keyword intent, assign a reminder to create a page for the query, and the like. You can also create your custom filters with the help of tags.
[img class=”size-full wp-image-24367″ src=”https://www.fullpress.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/6addingtagstovisiblecolumns.png” alt=”Adding tags to visible columns in the workspace” width=”700″ height=”303″ /] Adding tags to visible columns in the workspaceMost importantly, the practical meaning of tags is to create automatic tasks: you can generate reports and run automated checks for keyword lists with a specific tag. This little feature adds a lot of granularity and ease of use to keyword management.
Tip 3: Group Keywords by Semantic Similarity
Seeing hundreds or even thousands of keywords in your spreadsheet, you might be baffled at first. How do you map them all to existing URLs? This process becomes less time-consuming with Rank Tracker’s automatic keyword grouping by their semantic similarity.
Topic groups are of great help in sorting keywords and mapping them to content faster. The topic is the first thing keyword groups should be based on. Here, for convenience, the tool sorts keywords into small groups of synonyms, word forms, or similar word combinations.
The feature is available in both Sandbox and Target Keywords > Keyword Map.
Depending on the degree of similarity — low, medium, or high — you might get fewer or more groups. You can regroup them at any time by choosing another similarity level. Right-click on the needed folder (or all keywords, or just the ungrouped ones), click Group, and choose the semantic similarity level.
[img class=”size-full wp-image-24368″ src=”https://www.fullpress.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/7regroupingkeywordsbytopic.png” alt=”From the context menu, click Group by Topic and select the similarity level: high, medium, or low” width=”700″ height=”274″ /] From the context menu, click Group by Topic and select the similarity level: high, medium, or lowAdditionally, you can merge groups, copy, or move keywords between groups. Then, you can analyze each group and decide how to target each word within the content cluster.
Therefore, at this stage, we remove irrelevant keywords (right-click on the keyword and click Remove Keywords) and manually group similar keywords into relevant clusters.
Learn how keyword grouping works in Rank Tracker
Search intent is the key component of landing page optimization: to help it rank faster, a page must target a very specific purpose behind the query.
There are many types of keyword search intent, but let’s focus on three main types that correspond to the stages of the customer journey in the marketing funnel:
- Informational: These keywords are used to find any information, to explore a topic: what is SEO CTR, how to increase conversion rate, etc. Informational keywords are likely to trigger blog posts, guides, and tutorials.
- Commercial Investigation: Such keywords are used to find some reviewed, compared, or listed products, like Rank Tracker review, keyword mapping tools 2023, Excel vs. Google sheets, etc. Investigative terms are perfect for product listings and reviews.
- Transactional: These keywords signal a user’s readiness to buy something: buy Rank Tracker discount, keyword map templates, Notion templates for sale. Transactional queries fit product pages best.
However, intent is not as clear-cut as it seems at first glance. It can happen that Google suggests different search results for keywords seemingly belonging to the same group, even when, for instance, one keyword differs only by its singular or plural form.
It requires deeper analysis, and the best approach is to double-check the exact SERPs and see what kind of articles are displayed for a query. And, of course, you can do it manually, but it will be much faster with Rank Tracker’s SERP Details workspace. You need to enable the Record SERP data button. Then, the software will collect 30 competing pages from search results, which are de-identified and even displayed like in a location-specific SERP.
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You can quickly review URLs and check if your target keyword is present in them. When it’s hard to tell what the content is about, click on the webpage and examine its content.
The main idea is to identify which search intent the results in the SERP satisfy the most: informational, investigative, or transactional. When you find out, optimize your page accordingly.
For instance, the term “photography workshop” seems to include the intent to conduct (or take) a workshop; the intent is commercial investigation. In search results, you will see a mix of directories listing workshops and separate companies promoting workshops. To join this competition, there are options to create a well-optimized landing page promoting a seminar or create a listing that outlines the best X courses (this year).
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“Photography workshop ideas” seems to be informational, a more generic term. The SERP result is full of thumbnails and promotional videos. For this query, you will find blog posts listing these ideas, supported by good graphics.
Meanwhile, “online photography workshop” is more specific: the intent is commercial investigation, and visitors seem much more likely to attend a workshop (online). Results will show individual courses or listings, with many pages providing pricing and duration.
Once you find keywords you want to add to your target keyword list, click the Plus button, and you’ll see the Tracked label next to it: the term will appear in the corresponding group in the Target Keywords module.
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The main advantage of the keyword map in Rank Tracker is that you can estimate all SEO metrics not for a standalone keyword, but for the entire group of them distributed the way you need them: be it the entire keyword group of all queries with commercial intent, all keywords in a particular geographic location, all keywords in a particular section of your site, and so on. Similarly, you can perform this analysis for all keywords on each landing page.
The keyword map in Rank Tracker is divided into four parts, and each section allows you to analyze effectiveness in four different dimensions: SEO analysis, keyword difficulty, PPC analysis, and ranking performance.
SEO analysis helps estimate the potential of each keyword or the entire topic, the way they are sorted by groups or landing pages. The top dashboard in the workspace summarizes all estimated keyword averages. For example, you can see the total number of searches and expected visits if your page ranks in the first position.
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Some keywords are easier to rank for than others. Some can rank in far-off sections of your website and still bring good traffic volumes, while others require high-authority pages to start bringing any utility. Therefore, you need to consider keyword difficulty when assigning your keywords to pages.
Click on each keyword group or landing page to view the overall keyword difficulty score. This is the current difficulty. Similarly, you can inspect the difficulty of separate search terms. If you find those with low keyword difficulty and high search volumes, these are the traffic gems you should go for immediately.
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Rank analysis will help you monitor success and spot weaknesses. You’ll see the current ranking and the ranking difference from the last check-up (you can also adjust the time settings to compare top/bottom position changes).
Additionally, the tool will report if the ranking URL is different from the one you mapped as a landing page. It allows you to spot conflicting pages and cannibalization issues in your content.
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Another mapping tool in the SEO PowerSuite suite is Website Auditor. It’s more than just a site checker – it helps detect technical issues and, what’s more, optimize content more effectively. Keyword mapping in Website Auditor helps website publishers plan content, analyze SERPs, and optimize landings to leverage their SEO potential to the fullest. So, we can proceed with content mapping based on the keywords we’ve already collected in Rank Tracker.
This step requires Website Auditor
In Website Auditor, paste your site’s URLs to create a project. Then go to Page Audit > Keyword Map and click Import from Rank Tracker to add all discovered keywords (you can add them manually, of course, but importing from a CSV file or project is faster).
Now, all discovered keywords are listed in WebSite Auditor’s Keyword Map in the Page Audit module. And terms that have already been assigned to a landing page will be marked as Mapped. Next, you can map the rest of the unassigned keywords to remaining pages or plan to add new ones.
Now it’s time to actually perform content mapping. In WebSite Auditor’s Keyword Map, click on any term. The tool will automatically suggest relevant pages to map this keyword to.
WebSite Auditor estimates a page’s relevance based on the keyword’s presence in the URL, title, and the list of keywords the page is already ranking for.
Usually, there will be five suggested pages, so we’ll have to check them manually to find the best fit.
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Among them all, the software shows several metrics that should help you spot the best URL matching your keyword. Examine the metrics for each in the left pane of the workspace, such as:
- The total Organic Traffic the page has earned from ranking keywords over the last month.
- Mapped Keywords, if any.
- Other Ranking Keywords that need to be very close to your keyword.
- The Current Google Position and Traffic that each keyword has brought to the page.
- Search Volume and Difficulty for each keyword.
- The number of linking domains to the page and the total InLink Rank.
As you can see, the first suggested page contains the keyword in its title and URL, and it already ranks for this keyword. So it’s a match! Just click the green Map button next to the relevant URL to assign the keyword to the page.
Tip: Stick to the “One Keyword Per Landing Page” Principle
A page can fit multiple search queries well, so one landing page can be matched with multiple keywords, but one keyword can be mapped to only one landing page at a time.
It can happen that a keyword was mistakenly mapped to multiple pages (e.g., when you did mapping in Rank Tracker and imported the project into WebSite Auditor where you also mapped the keyword to a different URL). Fortunately, WebSite Auditor will automatically report if we map a keyword to more than one page.
[img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-24382″ src=”https://www.fullpress.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/21keywordmappedtomultiplepages.png” alt=”21+keyword+mapped+to+multiple+pages” width=”700″ height=”264″ /]
Then, you can easily investigate why this happened and unmap the less relevant page. Otherwise, conflicting pages might lead to keyword cannibalization and steal your organic traffic. Don’t let it happen!
For some URLs, it might be difficult to estimate their relevance at a glance. Again, we need to figure out the search intent and then have an idea of what the content should be. Sometimes, we’ll just have to click on the page and check it. But at this point, we can further use WebSite Auditor to explore the content more thoroughly from the perspective of their optimization level.
You’ve surely noticed that some URLs have optimization scores – I’ve already checked them for their optimization rate. If you see N/A instead of the score, ask Website Auditor to analyze the page content. Click on the bar chart in the top-left corner of the workspace, and the tool will switch to the Content Audit module.
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There you’ll see how well the URL is optimized for your keywords. The analysis will include top SEO factors, such as keyword usage in titles, meta descriptions, headings, alt texts, etc.
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Additionally, you’ll see some suggestions or warnings and a table of these factors and how they are used by your SERP competitors.
After doing an amazing job matching keywords and pages, you’ll have either keywords without pages or pages without keywords assigned to them.
If you reveal that a great keyword is not supported by any of your existing pages, great! By adding pages to your website, you seize opportunities to rank for new and diverse keywords. You get more crawlable URLs for your index, improve your overall rankings, and provide a resource for your users to access.
If you don’t have any relevant pages for the analyzed keyword, in the keyword map, click the Plus button at the top to add a new page, enter the new URL and new keyword, and the item will be created for you.
Note: Adding New Pages in the Keyword Map
You may have already entered the new URL that hasn’t been published yet, so it will be marked with a 404 header response in the keyword map.
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At the opposite end of the spectrum, if you see certain pages in your map that do not match any target keywords, it’s advisable to go back to Rank Tracker and find more suitable keywords.
However, the problem might not be with your keyword research. For example, your company pages like “About Us” and so on will likely have few or no keywords to target, and that’s perfectly normal.
Finally, you can use Content Editor to proceed with actual content optimization. Optimization suggestions are generated by analyzing the best-ranking pages for chosen keywords. The tool will suggest the optimal word count for the page, keywords to add and their number, and topics to cover. It will indicate optimization warnings, such as missing alt texts for images or absence of keywords in the title and/or meta descriptions.
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You can start editing the page content directly in the tool. As you modify the text, you’ll see the optimization rate improve. Alternatively, you can export the recommendations as a PDF file and send it to copywriters as a task.
Last but not least in our keyword mapping guide: how to get the big picture of the keyword map? Surely, content mapping can be done in spreadsheets, in tables with rows and columns, colored and marked as you please. But much more advanced management of all your pages can be done in a visual sitemap.
A visualized content map can help you review the content plan, rebuild the site, eliminate content, and perform many other tasks. With the content map at hand, you can identify places to put keywords on your site or plan the creation of new articles, categories, etc.
To get one in WebSite Auditor, navigate to the Site Structure > Visualization section.
Here, you’ll quickly grasp the entire idea of how your site structure looks like, how big the homepage is, what the categories are, and how many inbound and outbound links each URL has.
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The tool allows you to quickly switch the view for several important factors:
- A page’s click depth shows how many steps a user or Googlebot will need to reach it from your homepage. There are some correlations between page hierarchy and their rankings: those closer to the homepage rank for more keywords and get more views. So, it would be wise to put harder keywords on these pages.
- Internal PageRank, a metric similar to Google’s PageRank that shows how important a page is. As a rule, pages located closer to the homepage have more external links and more internal link juice.
- Pageviews according to Google Analytics that show how many views a page got over the last month.
On the visual sitemap, you can note down all your plans for content development, such as creating new pages and linking to the best destinations. Additionally, you can plan to merge URLs and remove irrelevant or outdated ones by setting up redirects when necessary.
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In Summary
Creating a keyword map is not an easy job to do. Moreover, keyword mapping never stops: it’s not something you do once and forget forever. It is a difficult and never-ending but rewarding process, as a proper keyword map will quickly reveal weaknesses in your content strategy and help you get rid of them. With this guide, hopefully, you can now perform keyword mapping more easily and faster.
Source: Link Assistant
Pubblicato in Digital Marketing, SEO
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