Preparing Keyword Map
In the last guide, we saw what a keyword map file is and how to make one. In that Excel or Google Sheet file, we map each URL to some specific set of keywords (set of keywords = a keyword and its variants). The sheet should look something like this.
| URL | Keywords |
| https://mywebsite.com/resume-editing | Resume editing services, CV editing services |
| https://mywebsite.com/interview-tips | Interview tips, interview hacks |
For simplicity, we will assume we have only two URLs.
Now, you would optimise each page for the respective keywords. But where should you target these keywords? For that, we need to know the important SEO elements in a typical web page.
Page Title
This is the most important part of any web page. It indicates what the page is about. The title of the web page is visible on Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
It is wrapped inside the <title> tag of the web page:
<title>This is the title of the page</title>
You should target one of your keywords in the title. If you have multiple keywords, then you can separate them using a pipe ( | ). The length of the title should be around 66 characters since long titles get truncated anyway. So, Let’s write the titles for our imaginary web pages.
| URL | Keywords | Title |
| https://mywebsite.com/resume-editing | Resume editing services, CV editing services | Resume Editing Services | CV Editing Services | MyWebsite |
| https://mywebsite.com/interview-tips | Interview tips, interview hacks | Interview Tips & Hacks For You | MyWebsite |
Note that we usually put our website name at the end of the title to make it brandable for people to recognize us.
Meta Description
This is the second most important element in our web page. It is a summary of our web page’s content. This summary is also visible in the SERP.
The purpose of the meta description is to describe our web page in a few words. The length of the meta description should be kept under 165 characters. Try to write keywords in the meta description also.
You can add one more column to the right of the above table to write respective meta descriptions.
Headings
These are used to structure our web page’s content. If we have separate sections of content then headings can help us organise that. The various levels of headings are H1, H2, H3, H4. You can target your keywords in H1 or H2 also.
Keep in note that you don’t have to use headings randomly. These should follow a particular order. This helps to make your content well structured.
For example, inside our resume editing page, if we wanted to write one section for professionals and other for freshers then we can do that by using headings like:
Resume Editing for Professionals (H1)
some content about resume editing for professionals
Resume Editing for Freshers (H2)
some content about resume editing for freshers
Writing a web page is like writing a normal document. It’s important to use headings and subheadings and always use heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc) for those.
Content
This is the most important element of any web page. You want to make sure that you definitely target keywords and all of their variants in the content of the web page.
If your content is not good enough then there is not much chance for your web page to rank. You can pitch your services, ideas or products in the web page content.
How do you write good content? Well, you have to practice. Or if you don’t have time then you may want to hire a content writer.
All you have to make sure is that you write the best possible content and try to answer all the possible questions that your user might be having.
Before writing the content, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Think about what that person is looking for when he comes to your website and answer all those queries.
Quality content is the King! As a head start, you can research your competitors in the industry and look at what they are writing and where it is that they are missing. Then you need to fill those gaps and provide content that adds value to the readers.
Now that you are ready with titles, meta descriptions and content for each page, you need to update them on the website. If you have a custom-built website then you can pass all these resources including the keyword map file to your developer for uploading.
But if you are using some CMS like WordPress or Wix, then updating these details is quite easy.
All you have to do is go to the appropriate page in your WordPress or Wix dashboard and update the details there. Also for WordPress specifically, there are plugins that can help you with this process.
You can try Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin.
Preparing this file with optimised titles, meta descriptions, content & headings is a process that requires effort especially when you have a website with many pages.
But remember, this is the most important and foundational step of your whole SEO process. You want to make sure that you get this right.
After updating these details on the website, you have to move to the next step which is to get other websites link to your website and build authority and trust. In the next guide, let’s talk about how to do that.
Search Engine Code Team is comprised of SEO experts and strategists having more than 20 years of combined experience. We keep testing and delivering knowledge of SEO for the community of SEO.
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