What Is a Keyword Map, and Why Do You Need One?

The first time I ever started working with keywords for a content strategy at another company years ago, I had little idea what was in front of me. I knew keywords were important, and that they had to be on our company website, but what else? Do I just slip them into whatever web pages seem to make the most sense? It all felt so vague, ill-defined, and unclear. How do you keep track of your keywords and where they should go? How do you know where to place them and how to manage them? Little did I know how much would go into the strategy before I wrote any actual content or published a webpage. It’s a long, meticulous process.

That’s when the phrase “keyword map” started popping in online searches and in conversations with coworkers.

What Is a Keyword Map?

A keyword map is a document that assigns specific keywords to certain pages of your website. It keeps track of everything related to your individual webpages, which keywords are used, and in what way they are used. The keyword map applies to more than just your website, though; it’s one of the most important parts of a long-term content strategy.

A keyword map is essential to the development of any good website optimization. Here’s why you need one.

A Keyword Map Helps You Organize Your Keywords and How They Fit on Your Website

If you’ve ever performed any keyword research prior to creating a keyword map, you probably have lots of long lists. Some keywords exist on your site, and some don’t. But producing new lists of keywords over and over eventually becomes a tedious process, and keeping track of them all creates a lot of fatiguing busy work. There is a better way to keep them organized.

A keyword map helps you organize the keywords you have deemed as your most important ones, and the ones you keep in the different areas of your website. When creating this map in a spreadsheet, list the various parts of a regular webpage. What these parts are depends on your best judgment and what you think is most important to track, but these are a strong start:

• Page ID
• Page URL
• Current page title
• Recommended page title
• Current keywords
• Recommended keywords
• Current <H1> tag
• Recommended <H1> tag
• Current meta description
• Recommended meta description
• Image Alt tags

The keyword for each page should exist in all of these categories. If it doesn’t, then that’s a good opportunity to insert it or look for a new keyword that could improve the quality of the page. Make sure to update the document whenever a page undergoes new changes to any of the different categories or when adding new pages.

If your website is still under construction and lacks a menu of products or services, a keyword map can act as a useful guide in determining what that menu should consist of. This makes developing all of your webpages simpler, as long as it makes sense and follows a few rules:

• The keyword is relevant to your business and industry.
• The keyword is closely associated with a product or service your company provides.
• The keyword carries high search volume and can produce lots of web traffic for your website.

The benefit of this map is that it allows for simpler organization and a provides an easier way to look up the DNA of any single webpage. As long as it stays current and in alignment with the existing page, it will be a reliable document now and in the future.

A Keyword Map Helps You Better Define the Importance of Your Webpages

Your website’s real estate is valuable. If you’re having trouble conveying why a particular webpage is important, don’t unpublish it just yet. Instead, map out the details of the page into the aforementioned categories.

Filling out these categories gives you a bird’s eye view of the page. When looking at the information, ask yourself these questions:

• Does this page help my visitors?
• Is it easier to understand what this page is about?
• Does it have all of the necessary information in place to help readers and search engines comprehend why this page exists?

Try to use one unique keyword for each page. Attempting to use the same keyword for multiple pages can affect the SEO quality of your pages and lead to a reduction in web traffic and search rankings. If you feel like the same keyword applies to more than one page, consider how those two pages work when combined into one, or if one page is redundant of the other. A unique keyword helps establish the vitality of the page to all stakeholders: Your boss, your company, your website, web visitors, and search engines.

You can also group similar keywords in with each other and use them on the same page. This tells web visitors that these words, while different, are still related to one another, providing additional SEO value to the webpage. The most relevant keyword, though, should be the focus in the title, URL, and meta description.

The better keyword focus the webpage has, the more likely it is to be of service to your website and business. Keywords help better drill down just what it is the page has to offer people who visit your site.

Keyword Mapping Lets You Assess Your Current Website’s Architecture

Depending on how much work and care you put into maintaining your website, you will have a lot to dissect. While a strong, healthy website exists based on a variety of factors, keyword quality is a big one. What kinds of keywords do you use for your website right now? And in what way? Do they enhance the quality of each of your webpages?

Creating a keyword map lets you better understand the architecture of your website and how it may need to change. A keyword map that has rows and columns left blank or poorly defined indicates that your site’s SEO is lacking in focus. Use this as an opportunity to do new keyword research that will help your webpages rank higher in search engines and help you make new clients and generate new sales.

Navigation is a major part of any website, and a keyword map can unearth some big problems with your navigation that might explain why your bounce rate on a certain page is high or why web traffic isn’t creating new leads or conversions. This is another chance to improve the overall health of your website.

Your website will also eventually have to undergo some big changes, even if it is pristine now. The keyword map helps smoothen that process out, letting you track where everything goes, and where it might be better placed in a future site redesign.

Keywords in Your Keyword Map Pave the Way for Future Content

You have your keyword map written out with all of your different keyword groupings. That’s great because they can be used for more content than just the existing page.

This doesn’t mean you should start throwing them into other pages; as mentioned previously, this can harm the SEO quality. What you can do with these words, though, is use them in other content forms, such as:

• Blogs
• Blog categories and tags
• Videos
• Infographics
• Social media posts

This helps retain an overall SEO focus for not just your webpages, but for your entire digital presence and strategy. It facilitates consistency across every online platform you use.

Always review your keyword map when creating new content to be used in your marketing. It’s an easy point of reference and fair game, as long as those keywords are helping you rank well and creating the goals you have set for them. Don’t just start creating content from scratch; use the resources you already have.

Creating or managing an online presence is difficult if you don’t have the process fleshed out before you attempt anything. It requires careful planning and strategizing, as well a thorough understanding of your business. A map helps you visualize the journey ahead and lets you marginalize the room for error. Imagine how much easier website development and content creation becomes when the bedrock is already in place. You would save countless hours cleaning up mistakes and quickly capitalize on web traffic coming in through search engines. It keeps your plan for your website, customers, and business that much more organized.

A keyword map is one of the most important parts of an SEO content strategy. Not only do we specialize in creating keyword maps for our clients, but we develop and manage entire SEO strategies for a small business like yours. If you’re struggling to see the road ahead, we can build it for you.