The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress does a great job of providing a snapshot of your page summary view, but for many of your target keywords, you won’t yet have a page and you’ll need to create one. By using a spreadsheet you can easily see where in your site’s architecture you’ll want to put it, and define key information about it before you start writing.
I have found that keeping track of your keywords in Excel or a Google spreadsheet in a structured way helps you with your content development strategy. It also helps you document which pages are targeting which keywords to refer back to in the future.
Google Spreadsheet or Excel works well
I use Google spreadsheet to outline my keyword research and keyword strategies for content generation. Once the initial keyword research is complete, I’ll export these keywords into the spreadsheet (after sorting by volume highest to lowest and competition lowest to highest). This is a method for local search Foxxr has found to be successful, but national search involves a more detailed method using more long tail keywords.
On this spreadsheeet, I created a column for the list of keywords we’ll be targeting, the URL of the page, the title tag, the meta description, the meta keywords (some directories still use meta keywords, so I decided to include these). I also added the character count function so that I can see how close we are to our general targets. The targets are 70 characters for a title and 165 characters for a description per the Yoast SEO plugin. These are guidelines that will avoid search engines truncating this information on the search engine results page.
Match keywords to your pages and posts
The first step in organizing keywords is to populate the spreadsheet with your existing web pages. The search engines want to see unique information for each and every page, creating a list of keywords here is a good way to quickly spot any duplications. Then take a look at the keywords from your keyword list and find the most appropriate pages of your site for each of the keywords.
You should make sure to distribute one keyword per page and try not to force anything. Search engines prefer unique and relevant content. So if you have a keyword that doesn’t match any page of your site, you’ll want to create a new page. When you add a new page to your spreadsheet, the good news is that you’ve got a blank canvas. You can define the SEO-friendly URL, title, description, and header right here in the spreadsheet.
The meat is in the body
Writing content when you know the how to organize keywords and create a list of keywords you’re optimizing it for upfront allows you to really dial-in on all of the best practices of content writing for keywords that you are covering. Remember, the meat of each page is the body copy (about 300 words), and you’ll probably need to go back through your existing pages to make sure that they’re really optimized for the keyword you’ve defined as a target.
The Yoast SEO plugin has a great on-page analysis tool. Another great tool that you have to pay a monthly subscription for is Scribe by Copy Blogger.
The suggestions from these tools can really help guide the changes you’ll be making to your pages.
Organizing your list of keywords on a spreadsheet will help you in a number of different ways.
- It gives you one place to organize and document the content of your site that will support the keywords that you’re targeting.
- It serves as an excellent resource for your copywriters, and will help streamline workflows.
- As a Google spreadsheet, it acts as a collaboration tool that can be updated in real time across all team members.
- It keeps your content strategy on track.
At Foxxr, we track organize our client’s keywords on a collaborative Google Web Development Workbook.
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