Keyword Mapping and SEO - How to Effectively Optimize Web Pages

Keywords mapping plays a crucial role in SEO and is part of your onsite optimization (how pages are set up so search engines can intuitively crawl and index your site).

Keyword mapping also keeps everyone on the same page (literally). If you are building a brand new website, keyword mapping is especially essential. It lends relevancy and consistency to your site's structure. It also keeps your copywriters and web developers on the same SEO track.

Keyword Research

Spend time researching keywords that fit your business/industry. There are user-friendly tracker tools that can help you with your keyword research: WordTracker and Google Keyword Tool.

• Relevancy - What words are relevant to your industry/niche?

• Search volume - How many users are searching for that keyword/term?

• Current ranking - What is the keyword ranking? Is there a term/phrase that ranks higher? If it's a high volume keyword such as "public relations" (ranked #5) compared to "crisis public relations" (ranked #500) - go with the former because you'll get FASTER results and qualified traffic.

Keyword Mapping and Web Pages
When it comes to keyword mapping, you first need to figure out what pages you will target with your primary keywords. Look for "natural matches" first.

• i.e. You sell running apparel and one of your keywords is "running shoes" and you have a page that solely sells running shoes. That should be the page where you target your keyword "running shoes."

Keyword mapping can get tricky but you can avoid issues by keeping the following tips in mind:

• If your page has little content or the copy is strong enough to stand on its own (and you don't want to ruin it by optimizing the content), you can create a special optimized page just for that keyword.

• Sometimes you won't even have a page for the keywords you want to rank. For example, the keyword "corporate lawyer in southern California" ranks high but you don't have a page offering/selling that service on your site. In this case, you would need to create a new page targeting that keyword.

• You can still include keywords on other pages, but when you assign keywords to specific pages, those pages will be more optimized and you will get more links for that keyword.

• For example, if you create an optimized page for "running shoes." Your goal is to work on getting links with the anchor text: "running shoes" (to point back to that specific page). However, it doesn't mean you can't include the keyword "running shoes" on other pages. It's better to have five pages mentioning running apparel and shoes than having one page only mentioning "running shoes."

• The best page to target primary keywords is your home page. The home page has higher search volume and relevancy than other pages. However, sometimes other pages have more value (such as your blog or another relevant section) over the home page. However, the rule of thumb is to target your keywords on the home page.

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