Keyword Mapping Worksheet

Keyword mapping means assigning exactly one primary keyword to exactly one page, and writing that assignment down. It sounds bureaucratic until you realise what happens without it: three pages on your site all try to rank for "emergency plumber near me," Google cannot decide which one is the real answer, and it splits your authority across all three. That is keyword cannibalisation, and it is one of the most common reasons a site with decent content still sits on page three.

The worksheet forces the decision. One row per page. Primary keyword, supporting keywords, search intent, the title you plan to use, and the internal links pointing at it. Once written down, the duplicates become obvious immediately.

Start with the pages you already have, not the pages you wish you had. List every URL, then write the one phrase a customer would type to land there. If two rows end up with the same phrase, you have found a cannibalisation problem: either merge the pages and redirect the weaker URL, or narrow one of them to a more specific phrase.

Next, tag intent. Informational pages answer a question and earn links. Commercial pages compare options. Transactional pages ask for the booking or the sale. A site that is all transactional pages has nothing to rank on early; a site that is all informational never converts. Aim for roughly two informational pages supporting each commercial one, and link the informational pages down to the commercial page with descriptive anchor text. Export the finished sheet and treat it as the brief for every page you write for the next quarter.