Mark Montanana

Keyword Maps Made Easy

A keyword map is a key ingredient for a successful SEO campaign. Keywords maps are so important because they constitute a bridge between on page and off page optimisation efforts.

A keyword map is a key ingredient for a successful SEO campaign. Keywords maps are so important because they constitute a bridge between on page and off page optimisation efforts

Nowadays businesses from every trade are vying for a spot in the first page of Google and are showing a willingness to commit more and more resources to achieve the coveted price.
In this fierce competitive environment you cannot afford not having a keyword map at the core of your SEO strategy. Keywords maps are so important because they provide a framework to start a successful SEO campaign and they constitute a bridge between on page and off page optimisation efforts.
Moreover a keyword map is very relevant to the whole marketing strategy of company. For example a keyword map can provide a valuable insight about which product or service mix is the optimal one; alternatively the findings of our keyword research can give us an indication of consumer shopping habits, popularity of a product or the overall competitiveness of a market. Therefore it is recommendable to have the input of colleagues who are specialist in other areas of marketing.

The process of keyword map goes hand in hand with the task of keyword research.  However keyword mapping is a more comprehensive activity.  The main benefits that you can draw from a keyword map are the following ones:

- Map attractive keywords to existing site pages and sections.
- Keep a record of all the pages within a website, this record can then be checked against a sitemap to ensure that search engines have indexed all the pages that we want them to index.
- Add new sections to match newly identified opportunities.
- Ensure that all the metadata complies with the recommended guidelines; for example making sure that the title of a page is not longer than 66 characters.
- Optimise the breadcrumb trail: It is important to achieve a navigational structure which will ensure that Page Rank is distributed evenly down through all the pages.
Though many SEO software companies provide templates for keyword maps; they can be easily implemented with an Excel spreadsheet.

A keyword map can be easily summarized in four basic steps:

1) Create an spreadsheet: A basic spreadsheet would consist of a row for which page of the website and columns which correspond to the following elements: page name, URL, target key phrases, page title, page title length, meta description , meta description length and columns corresponding to the first three or four headings. It is worth remembering that by using more than four heading tags dilutes the SEO value of this element.

2) Keyword Research: For each page start by picking up words that describe accurately the products or services that your company offer. It is also a good idea looking at competitors for ideas. Once we have compiled a list that is big enough, at least twenty words per page, we proceed to find the volume of searches for each word by using the Google AdWords Keyword tool. Normally we will focus on the local monthly results unless we are selling our services or products on several countries; in any case it is interesting to know the volume of searches per country.

3) Pick up a winner: Here comes the tricky bit; it is easy to go for the words that yield the highest volume of searches. By doing so we incur the risk of overlooking possible niche markets or trying to break in ultra competitive environments. Ideally you want to strike a balance between a large volume of searches and a low number of competitors. Though Google Ad Word Keyword Tool provides a competiveness index for each keyword, we cannot make our mind based in this metric alone.  SEO companies usually have specialised software that helps analysts to determine the effectiveness of a keyword; which is a good reason to leave SEO for professionals.

4) On page optimisation: Bearing in mind the principles of prominence; density and proximity we provide suggestions to optimise the following elements of a page: URL, page title, meta description, meta keywords and heading tags. Though the meta description and meta keywords barely contain any SEO value it is worth optimising them in order to make the snippet below the Google results link compelling (meta description) to prospective visitors and because some minor search engines still pay attention to meta tags.

In a nutshell a keyword map provides a framework to undertake several web marketing activities such as PPC management, SEO and web design.

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