Fun fact: Making sure every keyword appears on every page of your website… isn’t a good strategy. And yet, in the B2B digital marketing world, when we talk about B2B SEO, much of the conversation is about how to fit as many keywords as possible into each piece of content.
Don’t misunderstand; having keyword-optimized content is an important component of SEO, but identifying where each keyword should appear, rather than just shoving them into every paragraph and meta tag, is an integral part of the process.
Determining where each keyword—or each keyword cluster—should appear across the structure of your website is part of the keyword mapping process.
What is Keyword Mapping?
Keyword mapping is the process of assigning specific keywords or phrases to individual pages on your website. The goal is to create a clear and organized structure that makes it easy for search engines to understand the content of your website. Doing so can increase your website’s visibility in search results, ultimately driving more traffic to your site.
Keyword mapping is crucial to B2B SEO because it helps identify the most relevant keywords and phrases for each website page. It also helps to ensure that those keywords are used effectively throughout your B2B content marketing strategy, including page titles, meta descriptions, and header tags.
Related Reading: 8 Reasons to Implement Keyword Clusters in Your SEO Strategy
How to Use Keyword Mapping
Before you begin keyword mapping your website, you must conduct thorough keyword research. This process involves identifying the most relevant keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for. Tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush can help you identify which keywords you should target.
Once you’ve established a list of relevant keywords, it’s time to closely examine your website.
Start with the structure of your site:
- Is it easy to navigate?
- Does each page have a clear purpose?
- Do the titles of your pages clearly illustrate the content they provide?
- Does your website target the right audience?
There’s no point in mapping your keywords to your website if the answer to any of these questions is no. Remember, your website is one of your most important and influential marketing assets. If your website isn’t in good shape, all the keyword mapping in the world won’t help.
Assuming your website is in good shape, you can begin keyword mapping.
Start by identifying a primary keyword for each page based on the goals of the page. Identify secondary keywords related to the primary keyword to create subtopics within the page’s main content.
To help you stay organized, create a spreadsheet that lists each page of your website and the corresponding primary and secondary keywords. This spreadsheet will serve as a reference when creating website content and help you ensure that each page is optimized for search engines.
Related Reading: SEO for Website Pages vs. Blogs
5 Ways to Enhance Your Site With Keyword Mapping
1. Use one query to identify a more extensive set of keywords.
The first phase of SEO research aims to compile as many relevant keywords as possible that you want your site to rank for in search engine results pages (SERPs). An effective way to start this research is by querying a broad seed query and viewing its related results. For example, if you want to begin influencers for your B2B brand, you might use “B2B influencer marketing” as your seed query. By entering this query into a tool like Semrush, you can find more than 1,000 related keywords and metrics, such as estimated traffic and difficulty level, giving you an excellent overview of where to focus your efforts.
When using Semrush, look closely at the top 50 most relevant terms identified by the tool. This will help you ensure that the most important phrases related to the initial query are included in your keyword list. Applying filters on these results based on various metrics like monthly searches or keyword difficulty can also be beneficial when drilling down further into the vast amount of data points presented before you.
Ultimately, researching related keywords provides an efficient approach to recognizing high-value targeting opportunities, which will improve your online presence.
2. Create potential URLs and bucket keywords.
Creating potential URLs and bucket keywords is an essential part of SEO optimization. After identifying the relevant keywords for a given topic, organizations should look at structuring those key terms into various buckets to effectively create URLs and categories. This helps establish a hierarchical structure within the website, improving website visitors’ ability to navigate the website and enabling Google crawl bots to easily index the site.
Organizations should group related keywords in related subdirectories, such as “B2B Instagram influencer marketing” or “influencer marketing strategies. With keyword buckets, companies can create URL string designs that are both intuitive and user-friendly while also providing tangible paths for Google bots to find relevant information. This organized hierarchy improves the user experience (UX) and often improves organic rank.
3. Create an on-page optimization map.
Your on-page optimization roadmap should encompass all the opportunities and issues you identify during the keyword-mapping process. During the keyword mapping process, you may identify keywords that don’t easily fit on your existing pages, indicating that you need to add a page to your website. Or you may find that one of your pages doesn’t really fit with any of your keywords and, therefore, doesn’t really have a strong purpose. Make a checklist of each of these issues and the steps you will take to correct them, so you can track the progress of your keyword mapping and SEO optimization.
Beyond the content-level analysis, search engines also reward technically proficient websites. As you develop your on-page optimization map, check for technical flaws, such as slow page speed and broken links.
As you adjust and improve your website, continue to update your optimization map. Doing so will enable you to perform quick audits on an ongoing basis, which will help ensure that your website is active, up-to-date, and working properly.
4. Continue to optimize your on-page content.
Optimizing on-page content is essential to ensuring your content is targeted, relevant, and reaches the intended audience. On-page optimization may include updating headers or meta-tags, adding a paragraph or two to a blog to make it more current or timely, or changing out a broken link.
As you optimize page-by-page, you may find that two pages target the same cluster of keywords, creating redundant content that may confuse the user navigating the page. In cases like these, it may make sense to merge the pages or adjust one page’s focus to more clearly differentiate between the two.
The key is ensuring your website is simple and easy to navigate while providing valuable and targeted content.
5. Work with SEO experts.
By hiring experts to handle the initial keyword mapping process, you can ensure that it’s done correctly and accurately, giving you a strong jumping-off point for your SEO efforts. Partnering with a PR agency that specializes in SEO means you can benefit from their expertise and avoid the hassle of trying to learn it all yourself. Plus, with their access to the latest technology and processes, they can help you get a thorough keyword map done quickly and help set you up for success.
A strong SEO partner will help you identify which keywords you already rank for (which you should add to your digital marketing strategy), how to map your keywords to your website, and how to optimize your website to make it more intuitive and user-friendly. With the experts handling the technicalities and processes, you can focus on delivering excellent service and growing your business.
Related Reading: 51 Out-of-the-Box Strategies for B2B SEO
Why keyword mapping never stops
The process of keyword mapping is integral to any website SEO strategy and one that is never complete. As new content is created, new topics trend, or new products are released, new terms will be added to your list of keywords and must be mapped to your website.
And beyond adding new terms based on trends, new products, and so on—your keyword map should also be reviewed periodically for relevance; many topics and keywords that are popular today may no longer have any meaning years or even months from now. Keeping tabs on industry trends is essential when working with existing keyword maps. Continuously referring back to them will allow your team to stay ahead of the curb and easily adjust your content accordingly.
TLDR
Keyword mapping is an important SEO strategy that can help you future-proof your website’s structure and increase your visibility in search engine results. By mapping keywords to specific pages on your website, you can create a clear and organized structure that makes it easy for search engines and website visitors to navigate your site and locate valuable content. Want help developing your keyword mapping strategy? Reach out.
