Keyword Mapping for SEO

What’s the secret sauce to every good content strategy recipe? Keywords.

Keywords spice up your content and give your site texture to capitalize on traffic.

But your recipe falls apart if you don’t mix the right keywords with the right content. That’s where keyword mapping comes in.

It helps optimize and structure your content. That way, your content won’t be among the 96.55 percent of pages that don’t get any traffic from Google.  

Here, I’ll show you how to use keyword mapping to create a winning recipe that gets results. 

Key Takeaways

• Keyword mapping—aka assigning keywords to different web pages—improves visibility and drives organic traffic.
• Proper keyword mapping optimizes content and structure and improves overall SEO performance.
• Keyword mapping helps you identify gaps in your content. Addressing these gaps helps keep your website relevant to search engine queries.
• Keyword mapping prevents keyword cannibalization, which occurs when different pages compete for the same keywords.
• Organizing your content around specific keywords with keyword mapping makes it easier for people to find the information they want. This keeps visitors engaged and provides a more satisfying user experience.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Is Keyword Mapping?
• Benefits of Keyword Mapping For SEO
• How to Map Keywords
• How to Use Your Keyword Map
  • Avoiding Cannibalization in Your Keyword Map
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Conclusion

What Is Keyword Mapping?

Keyword mapping is the process of assigning specific keywords to individual website pages. This typically includes primary and secondary keywords. You might also work variations and long-tail keywords into your content strategy.

In essence, you’re creating distinct groups of keywords for each page. This helps you avoid keyword cannibalization (more on that later). I like to think of these as keyword clusters that structure your pages. 

Keyword mapping also boosts SEO by improving your site’s structure and optimizing content. 

So, how do you perform keyword mapping effectively? Think of it as a bunch of puzzle pieces.

Once you identify the best keywords for your SEO strategy, the next step is to find the pages on your site where they fit in—like a puzzle.

Take time to nail the optimization process and give your content a chance to rise in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Now that you have an idea of what keyword mapping is, let’s move on to the benefits.

Benefits of Keyword Mapping For SEO

With keyword mapping, you won’t have to play hard to get visitors.

As an SEO specialist or website owner, SEO keyword mapping helps you:

• Fill in the gaps: You may be missing out on keyword opportunities relevant to your business. In other words, there might be new keywords worth adding to your strategy. For example, say you expand your product or service offerings. This presents opportunities that call for a new keyword mapping session. Use the keywords to fill in the gaps for users, connecting them to the content they’re looking for.
• Find potential instances of cannibalization: The last thing you want is for your content to compete against itself. Use keyword mapping to identify duplicate content throughout your site to avoid keyword cannibalization.
• Internal linking: After conducting keyword research, you’ll know how to optimize your content. From the best anchor text to an internal linking strategy, you’ll provide top-notch site navigation for visitors. 
• Track keyword performance: Stay up on changes with keywords so you can pivot or research for replacements that will improve your performance.
• Better align with search intent: Keyword mapping ensures that your content targets specific keywords, making it easier for search engines to understand the content and match it to the user’s search query. 
• Discover opportunities to optimize existing pages: Keyword mapping uncovers opportunities for updating or optimizing pages. Whether it’s refreshing the content to target more relevant keywords or further optimizing on-page SEO elements like headers or internal links. 
• Give more context for your content or writing teams: Once you’ve finished keyword mapping for your SEO strategy, you can assign content for your team or freelancers to optimize.

How to Map Keywords

By now, you should be ready to start keyword mapping. Follow these five steps to get started:

1. Create or find a keyword mapping template. Check out (or use) these examples from Ahrefs or Semrush. If you build your own template, include fields for pillar pages, subpages, keywords, search volume, target URL, keyword difficulty, secondary keywords, and whatever else is relevant to your project.
2. Identify your site topics. For example, a florist might use “flowers” and “flower delivery.” We’ll show you how to use Ubersuggest to help with this in just a bit.
3. Gather keywords and organize them. Group keywords based on relevant categories. This structured approach means you create targeted content that speaks to your audience’s needs and interests.
4. Map your topics to pages. Use your template to map your topics to relevant pages. Record important metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, and traffic potential to help you prioritize your content creation and optimization efforts.
5. Decide what action to take. If the template you’re using doesn’t yet include it, add an “Action” column to organize your next steps. This is where you’ll decide whether to create new content, optimize an existing page, or leave it as is. The Ahrefs template, for example, offers you the choice of “create,” “optimize,” or “no action.”

However, the best content ideas won’t just fall out of the sky. So, here’s an example of how you could use Ubersuggest to help fill out your keyword map.

Imagine you’re a florist preparing for a busy holiday like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day.

It’s time to put on your seasonal SEO strategy hat.

Fire up Ubersuggest, enter “flowers” into the text box, and hit “Search.” You should see something like this:

From here, you can explore keyword ideas and their metrics and get content ideas.

Now, say you just started offering delivery options through Instacart.

You’ll want to ensure customers know this is an option when they visit your site. Check to see what keyword strategies your competitors use to draw inspiration from.

You can focus on the “flowers delivery” keyword in Ubersuggest and see ideas:

You’ll also be able to find out:

1. What your competitors’ content looks like.
2. Traffic to competitors’ pages.
3. Number of backlinks to competitors’ pages.
4. Number of shares on social channels.
5. Content ideas you should consider.

Those are great insights into how you should map out your keyword ideas. Use your competitors’ firsthand success to inform your strategy where it makes sense.

You can also find additional keywords and create a hub of content on the topic to offer your visitors ease and convenience.

Next, check out the “Keyword Visualization” function. With the keyword “flowers delivered,” you’ll see search queries that users regularly input into search engines.

Use this information to come up with ideas on how to boost your delivery services.

Build a content strategy around these keywords to drive traffic to your website. For example, you might create a page all about flowers’ suggested delivery times using the keyword “how do flower deliveries work.”

If you prefer a more automated approach, Audience Key has a keyword-mapping SEO tool starting at $39 a month. A 14-day free trial is available.

You can also use AI to assist with researching, mapping, and data analysis. 

How to Use Your Keyword Map

·Now that you’re all set up, here are some of the many ways you can use your keyword map.

• Content optimization: Improve your pages’ search visibility by refreshing published content to align with the keywords you’ve identified. Use these keywords in your headings, meta titles, meta descriptions, and body text to include them naturally to assist SEO.
• Create new content: As I mentioned before, keyword mapping identifies gaps where relevant content is missing. 
• Improved anchor text: Once you’ve mapped your keywords, you can add relevant terms to your anchor text so search engines can better interpret the context. Use internal linking to drive traffic to your pillar pages from related subtopic content to improve their authority and rank, too.

Avoiding Cannibalization in Your Keyword Map

Keyword cannibalization occurs when two or more pages on your website unintentionally target the same keyword(s). This confuses search engines and hurts your website’s ability to rank well for their intended search queries.

It also negatively impacts the user experience. Two pages with similar titles and keywords also confuses searchers, who won’t know which page to click on. 

How can you avoid cannibalization when you’re keyword mapping?

Double-check that you assign unique keywords to individual pages to avoid overlapping. If you find overlapping pages while working on your keyword map, consolidate similar pages or assign different keywords to each page.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is keyword mapping?

SEO keyword mapping—the process of assigning specific keywords to relevant pages on a website—starts with keyword research and analysis. Next, categorize the keywords by determining which apply to your niche. You can group keywords in clusters to form content hubs for easy content navigation and even which to link to internally. These keywords will also inspire your URLs, titles, and more. You’ll need to update your keywords regularly, so track their performance and repeat the process as needed.

Why is keyword mapping important?

Keyword mapping is important for organizing your content—from the URL to the content on the page surrounding the keywords. Your efforts will help search engines better pair your content with similar search queries.

How to create a keyword map

Start by conducting keyword research to identify relevant terms. Group these keywords into categories based on topics. Assign unique keywords to your content, and make sure each page targets unique search phrases. Be sure to organize your map properly to guide content creation. You can make your template in Excel or use a free template from the web. Finally, review your keyword map and keep it up to date.

Conclusion

Looking to achieve better search rankings? Start with keyword mapping.

It’s a powerful tool for organizing your content and boosts your website’s search visibility. Keyword mapping gives each page a clear focus, giving your site structure and making it easier for users to find what they’re looking for.

So, start working keyword mapping into your SEO strategy and watch your site surge to the top of the SERPs.

If you want to save some time in the research phase, tools like Ubersuggest can help you streamline the process and uncover valuable keyword opportunities.Now, get out there and start your map.