Keyword Mapping: What is Keyword Mapping in SEO

Are you searching for the secret on how to rank on the first page of SERPs? Don’t worry, many are. There are plenty of different SEO tactics and techniques that can help: stuff like your link buildingLink building is a process of acquiring links pointing to your website. These links are obtained by creating content, participating in social media or commenting on other blogs., XML site mapping, source code optimisation, and more. However, there is an often ignored SEO tactic that this article is going to explore, and that is keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. mapping.

Keyword mapping is a massively underused SEO technique that can help your online business unlock the key to meeting search intent, one of Google’s top criteria for ranking websites.

Excited to find out more about this highly effective SEO strategy and how it can transform your SEO efforts?

Within the below guide, you will find out:

• What exactly is keyword mapping
• Why keyword mapping is important for SEO
• How to leverage keyword mapping for SEO

What are you waiting for?

Let’s dive right in.

What is keyword mapping?

In a nutshell, keyword mapping is the process of assigning keywords to specific pages on your website based on keyword researchKeyword research helps websites unearth the best keywords to drive traffic and visibility. This research is supported by a number of powerful web-based tools, the best of which we’ve listed here..  The ultimate goal of keyword mapping is to help you learn how and where to optimise, what type of content to create, and where to add new pages to attract maximum traffic.

A key part of on-page SEO, keyword mapping is invaluable when it comes to enabling Google and other popular search engines to analyse the relevance of your pages.

Keyword mapping should always be included in your overall SEO strategy as a part of your content creation and optimisation efforts. You can do this yourself, or you can choose to seek the help of a professional content agency for maximum ROI.

Why is keyword mapping so important for SEO?

As briefly touched upon above, keyword mapping is a crucial part of keyword research, as without it, you are effectively shooting in the dark when it comes to both creating content and ranking well on search engine results pages.

Keyword mapping is also important for ensuring your site has a clear architectural structure, allowing Google to understand its categories, sub categories, and products.

Furthermore, keyword mapping can improve the overall usability of your website, helping to create concise and effective ULR structures and breadcrumb trails that are easily understood by crawlers and users alike.

Still not sure why keyword mapping is so vital for SEO?

Think about it this way. Say you are on a website looking for the iPhone Pro 12. Do you want to be able to go directly to the page featuring this product, or do you want to have to look through every iPhone the website offers?

Of course, it’s the former, and keyword mapping can help you to ensure that your site delivers this ease of use for your customers and that Google can easily index your pages.

Other benefits of keyword mapping include:

• To help structure your internal linking
• To avoid keyword cannibalization
• To avoid duplicate contentDuplicate content is content that appears more than once across a single website. Duplicate content can be a sign of poor resource management, low trust, or a lack of quality control.
• To discover weaknesses in your current keyword targeting strategy
• To determine your current position in the market

How to leverage keyword mapping for SEO success

Discover how to use the power of keyword mapping to transform your SEO strategy in just seven simple steps.

Step 1: Focus on one query to identify multiple keywords

The first part of keyword research involves finding as many keywords as possible that relate to your business and your offer’s products or services. When it comes to keyword mapping, you need to be thinking outside the box and looking for keywords beyond the ones that you currently rank for.

One highly effective way to do this is by picking one key search phrase, perhaps one that your competitors are currently ranking for, and identifying all the related keywords. Once you have these, and be warned, there will probably be a lot, simply paste them into an Excel spreadsheet.

Step 2: Group the keywords together

Now that you have all the keywords relating to your chosen query, it is now time to start grouping them together.

Start by duplicating your spreadsheet and then systematically working your way down your list, placing similar keywords together. If you are not sure where to start when it comes to grouping your keywords by topic, there are two main elements that you need to consider:

1. Search intent

Search intent is the process of understanding why someone is making a particular search. For example:

Are they looking to make a purchase?

Are they seeking out information?

The type of searcher intent can help you to group together keywords into categories such as transactional intent, commercial intent, and navigational intent.  If you are not sure about the search intent behind a specific keyword or phrase, there are several ways that you can find this out:

• Examine the SERPS. Simply type in the keyword and see what type of results come up. If you see lots of product categories, product images, and paid ads, it is highly likely that this keyword has commercial intent.
• Use Google Ads. Using Google Keyword PlannerThe Google Keyword Planner Tool helps you find new keywords and synonyms based on the ones you already rank for., you can see how competitive and expensive a keyword is, which can also be a stronger indicator of commercial intent.
• Analyse your bounce rates. A high bounce rateBounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who visit only one page. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are not satisfied with your website. indicates that your current keywords are not matching searcher intent.

2. Page purpose

Think about the purpose of each page on your website, who is the target audience of each page, and how they would search for it?

If you have a particularly large website, you may want to focus your efforts on your most important pages, such as your homepage, your about us page, and your category and products pages.

By the end of this process, you should have a handful of keyword groups, possibly as many as ten, which will help you to structure your website according to specific themes and allow you to optimise your content.

Step 3: Analyse the pages relevant to your keywords

The next step involves analysing the pages on your website to see which keywords they should be matched with. Make sure that you look at key on-page elements, including meta data, content, and any keywords that are currently included.

Depending on the types of pages that are ranking for your keywords, you should be able to quickly find out if a specific page fits that intent and also if it is strong enough to rank for it. For example, if you discover that a certain keyword is mostly ranking on homepages, it is unlikely to be effective on a minor page on your site.

Make sure you take your time with this step as it is crucial to the effectiveness of your keyword map and ultimately, your overall SEO efforts.

Step 4: Map the keywords to the pages based on search intent

As mentioned in step two, identifying search intent is vital to the keyword mapping process as this allows you to easily align your chosen keywords with the pages that correspond with that same intent.

For example, an educational blog post or news article will attract people with informational intent, whereas a category page needs to be optimised to attract searchers with transactional content.  It is a fairly straightforward process but one that is often overlooked when it comes to SEO, resulting in inferior favourable rankings.

When it comes to keyword mapping, you want to cluster together keywords that have the same searcher intent so that you can easily apply these to the right pages on your site.

Transactional keywords tend to include phrases such as “buy” or “for sale”, whereas informational keywords include “best”, “top rated” and “recommended”. For searchers with navigational intent, look out for a brand name or specific product that you sell.

You may find during this step that you discover certain high volume keywords that seem applicable for many different pages on your site. Although it may seem like a good idea to use these keywords multiple times, this can result in various pages of your site having to compete with each other in terms of ranking on Google, which is counterproductive and a waste of good keywords.

Step 5: Identify content gaps

Once you have mapped out your whole website, now is the perfect time to identify any gaps in both your content and your keyword research. Unless you are a keyword mapping wizard, it is highly likely that you will have some pages that don’t yet feature any of your chosen keywords.

Don’t worry too much about this, as your main priority should be optimising your most important pages, i.e. the ones that are most likely to increase your rankings on SERPs and drive organic trafficOrganic search traffic (sometimes called natural or unpaid search) is the traffic that's driven to a website because of unpaid placement on a search engine results page. to your site. That being said, if you have completed the above steps and you have some time on your hands, you might want to address these gaps to further improve your overall SEO efforts.

Pages without keywords

If you have certain pages on your map that do not yet have any keywords assigned to them, it can be a good idea to revisit the keyword research stage specifically with these pages in mind. Another top tip is to carry out further competitor research relating to these pages so that you can get a better idea of the type of content that these pages are ranking for.

That being said, there are some pages on your site that may have little to no keywords included in them, such as your about us page.

Keywords without pages

On the flip side, you may also find that you have leftover keywords that have not been attributed to a page on your site. Rather than waste these relevant terms, you may want to look a little closer at each one’s search intent and search volume so that you can use them in your future content writing endeavours.

Remember, you can never create too much great content, with each new piece providing a new opportunity to rank for new keywords. So, next time you find a keyword that doesn’t fit with any of your existing content, rather than discard it, why not create a brand new blog or video or infographic that does?

Step 6: Consider restructuring

As mentioned earlier, when discussing why keyword mapping is so important for SEO, this crucial process can help you to identify any problems with your site’s existing structure. For example, you may have a page on your site that your customers are interested in and that now contains the right keywords, however, the original structure may not be conducive to customers finding it.

Think about it this way. Say you sell iPhones and your current category page is broken down by cost, as in phones that are under £500, phones that are between £500-£1000 and phones that cost over £1000. Now imagine that during the keyword mapping process, you found out that people prefer to search by model rather than price. This provides you with the perfect opportunity to change the structure of your site to better serve your target audience and to allow for maximum content optimisation.

Step 7: Monitor your results

As with any aspect of SEO or in fact, digital marketing as a whole, you need to make sure that you monitor your results to see what works and what could do with a tweak or two.

Aim to go back and review both your content and your rankings at least every quarter – even monthly if possible – and see which keywords have been most effective. You won’t have to start from scratch ever again, but you may have to make a few adjustments along the way to ensure optimal results.

The good news is that once you have discovered what works, you can replicate this to some extent across your site and enjoy a significant rise in the ranks of Google.

Conclusion

Keyword mapping is an ongoing process that forms a crucial part of your overall SEO strategy. To get the most out of keyword mapping, you need to be consistently seeking out new keywords and discovering ways that you can incorporate them into both your existing pages and any new landing pages that you create.

Whether you choose to do this alone or you prefer to seek the services of an experienced SEO agency, you need to make sure you always keep one eye on the prize when it comes to both keyword research and content creation. Because even if you aren’t, your competitors definitely will be!