Keyword Research & Mapping SOP

This document is to outline the process for keyword research and the expectation from this research.

Our keyword approach needs to be informed and have outcomes
associated with it!

The following process will allow anybody within the SEO team to pick up this process quick and have a firm understanding of how to develop a keyword strategy:

Template

Open the keyword research template, it should look like the screenshot below:

SEMRush is the tool to use for keyword research.

Objectives

Understand the objectives of the campaign, this will inform you on the keywords to focus on, you could be focusing on 1000’s if you don’t have a clear understanding of the campaign objectives. If unsure, ask a member of the team. 

The Research

The research for keywords underpins every SEO and PPC campaign and is the one tactic that will allow each member of the team to spot opportunities.

We will use SEMRush for keyword research, no other tool should be used for any keyword research.

  1. Open SEM Rush
  2. Click, “Keyword Overview”
  3. Enter the keyword you would like to start researching into the main search box at the top.

    Ensure the correct region is selected for the objective, ie UK if it is a UK based campaign.
  4. Click view all keywords and review the list that is generatedSelect the keywords of relevance and the keywords that you believe will meet the objective. In this instance, white label digital agency Los Angeles isn’t relevant so shouldn’t make the list.Try to avoid “best” keywords as these are unlikely to be for clients we have.
  5. Open the keyword research sheet, this sheet will have a number of predefined fields that need to be completed. Work through each of these fields adding in the keyword data.i) If there is more than one “intent” field, only select the first one, i.e in the example below, you would select I for “informational”ii) If the search volume is 0, list this in the sheet as <10
  6. URLs to be populated, this is a task that may require further training and understanding but as a rule of thumb, if it is a product category or service, the product or service should be the page to rank. If it is a product, the product should rank and if it is longtail, the blog should rank.