Content keyword mapping is the on-site art of identifying and assigning keywords to specific pages on a website, otherwise known as on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
The goal is to increase organic online visibility across Google and other major search engines.
What is keyword mapping?
Keyword mapping is the process of determining keywords to assign to specific webpages on a site through prior research, and optimizing the on-page SEO of the content on each page to that keyword. Keyword mapping is an overall SEO and content framework for helping websites rank for keywords that are relevant to their audiences and goals.
The beauty of keyword mapping is that it can help you to understand what existing pages and content can be optimized for a particular keyword, and even guide you with regards to what new content can be created to incorporate keywords that you may not have covered yet.
How do I identify keywords?
Identifying keywords is arguably the most important aspect of building a successful content keyword map, particularly if your business operates within a highly competitive market. However, even within niche markets, your goal should be to identify new long tail keywords and low hanging fruit that your competitors are not targeting.
With the ever-increasing adoption of AI-powered voice ecosystems, such as the Amazon Echo, businesses of all sizes can capitalize on more long-tail keywords and conversational-based searches than ever before. Voice search is just one of many SEO trends in 2019 that you should be aware of.
When undertaking keyword search, there are many tools at your disposal, such as Moz’s Keyword Explorer.
| TIP: There are many other alternative SEO tools available to content marketers. |
While Moz Pro is a paid subscription service, at the time of writing this article you can sign up for a free Moz account which will entitle you to 10 free queries per month.
When identifying keywords and carrying out keyword research, you should pay particular attention to the following metrics;
- Monthly search volumes (how many prospects are searching)
- Difficulty (competitiveness of the keyword)
- Organic CTR (estimated organic Click-Through-Rate)
All of the above metrics are imperative when it comes to building out your content keyword map.
Let’s say for the purpose of this guide that you are looking to identify search volumes and the keyword difficulty for the keyword appointment scheduling software as illustrated. You will be presented with the core metrics we covered earlier, along with new keyword suggestions, which you may not have covered before. Once you have that information then it’s time to export it and start mapping keywords to content!
For additional data, be sure to use Google’s Search Console. Here you will be able to unearth and discover queries being made by prospective customers who may very rarely click through to your website. From here, you will be able to identify existing landing pages with a below average CTR This data can be like gold dust when it comes to building your keyword map.
How to build a keyword map
Once you’ve completed your keyword research, you now want to combine data. Depending on the tool that you’re using, it may come from different sources into your content keyword map.
If you are using Moz, then you’ll likely have a list of keywords, with corresponding average monthly search volumes as illustrated above. While this a good start, a start is all it is More data and additional columns are needed, but rest assured that the end result will be well worth it.
The columns that you choose are optional, so for the keyword map to be meaningful I would highly recommend including the following;
- Keyword
- Landing page
- Search volume
- Organic CTR
Optional columns that you may wish to consider adding include;
- Page title grade
- PA (Page Authority)
- Page score
- Page speed
- External links
- Current SERP position
If you’re interested in including many of the above metrics, then you could use a tool such as the On-Page Grader from Moz.
To understand which keywords currently rank and for which pages they correspond, Google Search Console should again be your go-to.
Within Search Console, you’ll be presented with a list of ‘QUERIES’. From here you can filter by simply selecting the keyword, and voila, just like magic, all the landing pages for which the keyword either generated impressions or clicks for, is returned.
Armed with this new information, you’ll now have a great understanding of what keywords are relevant to each landing page You’ll also have a great indication of landing pages which are not getting as many click-throughs as you would like, and should therefore be improved. It is yet another benefit of creating the map in the first place.
You should now have a Google Sheet or Spreadsheet, which will look something like this;
From here, it’s a process of repeating and building out your map for as many keywords as you desire. Just to recap and define some of your core data sources for this process;
- Page score: These range from one to 100. A page score acts as a trust signal that measures the importance of a web page.
- Difficulty: Also commonly referred to as competitiveness, difficulty essentially measures how hard it would be to rank with a certain keyword on the first few pages of a Google search.
- Organic CTR: The click-through rate measures the percentage of clicks on a specific link and determines whether you maintain your ranking.
- PA: The Page Authority measures the ability of your page to rank in search results.
- Current SERP Position. This metric shows you where your page ranks in the search engine results.
I have the keyword map, now what?
So you’ve built out this incredible content keyword map, but you’re not sure what to do next. Having this keyword map should help you with a couple things.
- Identify new keywords that are not covered by any content on your website. This should guide you as to new content and landing pages that need to be created.
- Identify content covered by keywords with a low CTR. If this is the case, then you can look to further optimize the page, and perhaps focus on improving the meta description and title which is returned in a Search Engine Result Page (SERP).
- Understand the competitiveness of keywords and prioritize. One of the great and obvious benefits of building a keyword map is the fact that SEO and content marketers can effortlessly prioritize. It paints a picture of where there is low hanging fruit in terms of new keyword opportunities, which you can order by difficulty, and search volume. Pretty cool, eh?
Ready to learn more about optimization of your website? Learn about the best e-commerce SEO practices in 2019.