The very foundation of all SEO strategies is keywords. These are the words that your target audience uses to look for you, your website, products, services, and content. But since your website has lots of pages and URLs, it can be hectic to track all of your keywords for each page and site. This is where keyword URL mapping comes to the rescue.
In this Article
- What is Keyword URL Mapping?
- How Do I Do Keyword URL Mapping?
- Benefits of Keyword URL Mapping
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Final Takeaway
- Related Reads
What is Keyword URL Mapping?
Keyword URL mapping is the process of assigning keywords to their respective specific URLs on your website, so they are all linked appropriately.
In this way, a person searching for a particular item or information may fall upon that page of your website that gives that information. And then, of course, after that, they’re in your domain, and they can be led through the rest of your website, which facilitates connection with your brand.
Keyword URL mapping gives you a clear definition of what keywords should be ranking for any specific URL on your site. It also helps you make specific on-page SEO recommendations to make the URL more relevant to the mapped keywords.
With keyword URL mapping, you can properly direct users to the right part of your website that gives them relevant information. It helps you focus keywords on specific pages so that users find exactly what they’re looking for.
How Do I Do Keyword URL Mapping?
1. Keyword Research
Everything starts with keyword research. You must first identify your target keywords to know what you’re working with.
It’s important to take into consideration the perspective of your target market. What keywords will they search for to find your website? You can then further branch out from that by identifying other similar keywords. You can use keyword research tools for this.
It’s also important to take into consideration both short-tail and long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords are much more general, so they get more searches but are highly competitive, so it’s hard to rank for them. Long-tail keywords are much more specific, so they get lesser searches but are not as competitive as short-tail keywords.
A good website takes advantage of both short-tail and long-tail keywords.
Aside from all of this, you should also check out which keywords are currently ranking for your pages. It helps you establish where you are exactly with your SEO and what you’re working with.
2. Check for Relevance
Once you’ve identified the keywords you want to target and what keywords are currently ranking for your pages, it’s time to re-evaluate everything.
You’ll have to check if the right keywords are ranking for the right URLs. You can do this with the keyword research tools that were mentioned before. To know if these keywords are on the right URLs, you’ll have to take into account the relevance of the keyword to the page. If they’re not relevant to each other, you’ll know to eliminate non-relevant keywords for a specific page.
You’ll also have to check if there are any repetitive keywords that are ranking for multiple pages, which can be very bad for your overall website SEO. This is called keyword cannibalization. It forces keywords to compete with each other and it negatively affects the performance of your website as a whole.
3. Create a Keyword Mapping Document
Once you’ve identified all the keywords you’re ranking for, their corresponding URLs, and your target keywords, it’s time to collate them in an organized document.
The easiest way to collate everything is to use a spreadsheet. How you’ll label each column of this spreadsheet is entirely up to you. What’s important to take into account though is this:
- The URL of the page
- The keyword ranking for it
- The target keyword for it
But you can also include other columns like:
- suggested keywords
- existing meta descriptions
- keyword search volume
- keyword difficulty
- other analytics
Once you have this document, you can now see things in a better light. You can get an overview of what changes you need to do to your website.
Benefits of Keyword URL Mapping
1. Better User Experience
When a user searches for a keyword in Google, they expect to be redirected to a relevant page.
For example, a default webpage has all your keywords directed to your homepage. If a user clicks on your page but only sees the homepage of your website and no relevant information, they’re likely going to go away. This increases the bounce rate of your page and that’s always bad news for you.
But with keyword URL mapping, you can properly direct users to the right part of your website that gives them relevant information. It helps you focus keywords on specific pages so that users find exactly what they’re looking for.
2. Identify Underperforming URLs
Part of keyword URL mapping is identifying which keywords are ranking for which URLs.
For instance, imagine you have a shop that sells clothes and shoes. The URL to the shoe part should have its own keywords based on the types of shoes you are selling. If on the same website you sell jewelry, you will want specific keywords just for that jewelry page.
This consideration gives you a base understanding of what keywords you are using and if any of your pages are underperforming.
Keyword URL mapping brings your attention to pages that are not performing well. These pages will come to your attention when you’re researching what keywords are ranking for each page.
You’ll be able to identify which ones are not performing well because they have low rankings and minimal keywords. This can be done through keyword research tools. Since you have now identified this problem, you can further optimize your URLs accordingly.
3. Avoiding Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization happens when multiple pages of your website target the same or similar keywords. This forces the keywords to compete with each other and ultimately hurts the site’s organic performance.
With keyword URL mapping, you’ll be able to identify repetitive keywords. For example, the same keywords are ranking for 2 different URLs. But upon further inspection, one URL is more relevant to the keyword than the other. With this, you can now make changes accordingly by updating the other page with a new keyword, so both pages don’t have the same keyword.
4. Organizing Content
Keyword URL mapping also helps you keep track of the content and keywords that you’ve already used in the past. You can then double-check if ever you have any duplicate keywords for any of your URLs. You can also include the performance of each URL page so you can easily identify which ones need an update to perform better.
5. Find Opportunities to Insert Long-Tail Keywords
Short-tail keywords can be very competitive, especially if they’re general keywords. Because of this, it can be significantly harder to rank for these keywords. This is why it’s important to always look for opportunities to insert long-tail keywords. Despite only having a few searches per month, long-tail keywords are easier to rank for. It still helps your page rank better overall.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the best tool to use for Keyword URL Mapping?
Most businesses and search engine optimizers just use a spreadsheet for keyword URL mapping. It’s easy to input information, edit information, and share the document with involved parties.
What are the tools that can I use for my keyword research?
Ahrefs is one of the most popular keyword research tools in the market. Other than that, there’s SEMRush, Keyword Surfer, Keyword Sheeter, and Google Search Console.
Is Keyword URL Mapping different from URL Mapping?
URL mapping is involved more with the coding of URLs of a website. It’s used for redesigning websites and migrating websites. Keyword URL mapping is more focused on assigning keywords to URLs to optimize a website as a whole.
Final Takeaway
Keyword URL mapping helps business owners get an overview of the keywords that they have already used so they can avoid keyword cannibalism. It also helps them identify which URLs are the most relevant to the keywords they are ranking for.
It’s a must-have if your website grows and you want to step up your SEO game. So if you don’t have a keyword URL map yet, now is the time to make one. It gives you the opportunity to lay out plans, refine details, strategize better, and overall handle your website in an organized way.
It’ll help you steadily grow your website while keeping track of your keywords and avoiding keyword cannibalism. It will ultimately boost viewers to your pages and confirm stays – the absence of bouncing – that’s when they leave.