An introduction to keyword mapping

Everybody knows that keywords are an essential component of search engine optimisation. Deploying relevant keywords in a naturalistic fashion is one of the best ways to ensure that search engines know what your website is about and can rank it according to relevance. Using the right keywords guarantees that your website will be seen by the right kind of consumers. However, you may be wondering how to deploy your different keywords for best effect. You may also be curious about how you can avoid missing out important keywords. The solution to both of these challenges is the same: keyword mapping.

What is it?

Keyword mapping is a really simple (but very useful) concept. It involves assigning specific keywords to the individual pages of your website. Many website owners try to use every keyword on every page of their site, but this isn’t always the best move. It’s often more advisable to try to ensure that each page ranks highly for a separate keyword or small set of keywords. There are two major reasons for this. Firstly, it’s easier to avoid ‘stuffing’ keywords into your text if you only focus on a few for each page. Search engines punish websites for using keyword stuffing, so this is important. Secondly, dividing your keywords across multiple pages ensures that different parts of your site will appear in the search engine result pages (or ‘SERPs’) in response to different search queries. This allows you to turn each page into a keyword-specific landing page, thereby making it more relevant to web-users who click on it. This can have a significant positive impact on your conversion rate.

Keyword mapping: the process

Keyword mapping allows you to distribute your keywords across specific pages, thereby bolstering your SEO and conversion rate. We recommend tackling keyword mapping in three stages. Firstly, research keywords that might be relevant to your business using analytics tools, then make a list of these words. Next, choose several commonly-searched-for and highly-relevant keywords to be your site’s core keywords and others to be page-specific keywords. Core keywords will need to appear on almost every page of your site to give both viewers and search engines a clear idea about the site’s general contents. Page-specific keywords will need to appear on individual pages. Finally, create a list of all the pages on your site and match page-specific keywords to each one. It may be necessary to either create one or two new pages for major keywords that you’ve overlooked. Once you’ve done this, all you have to do is apply the keywords to the pages you’ve chosen.

Mapping different keywords is a very straightforward process, but it still requires care and attention.

If you need assistance, we can help. Here at Excalibur Digital, we provide a wide variety of different SEO services, so contact us today if you want to improve your site’s search engine optimisation.