Mapping keywords to pages

A physiotherapy clinic has a "Physiotherapy" service page, a "Physio treatments" page written a year later, and a blog post called "What is physiotherapy?", and all three sit on the second page of results for the same search while a competitor with one page holds the top spot. Nobody decided those pages should compete; it happened because nobody decided they shouldn't. A keyword map is that decision written down: one page per keyword group, one primary keyword per page.

Why two pages on one keyword both lose

For most searches Google shows at most a couple of results from one site, a limit Google announced as its site diversity update in 2019. When two of your pages answer the same search, Google has to pick, and it doesn't always pick the same one. The two pages split everything that would otherwise accumulate on one: internal links, anchor text, links from other sites, click history. Neither carries the full signal, so the ranking URL keeps swapping and the position never settles.

SEOs call this cannibalisation: two of your pages competing for one keyword so that neither ranks as well as one would. The symptoms: a keyword whose ranking URL changes week to week, two of your URLs a few places apart, or a page you expect to rank beaten by a weaker page of your own. It's rarely deliberate: a new page written instead of updating an old one, a blog post drifting into a service page's territory, location pages that repeat each other with the town name swapped.

Group keywords that want the same page

Google doesn't treat every phrasing as a separate topic. Keywords with the same intent and meaning return the same pages, and that is the test: search two keywords, and if the same pages rank for both, one page of yours should target both. Different results mean different pages.

So the first step is grouping. For each group, choose a primary keyword, the clearest and usually most-searched phrasing, and list the rest as supporting keywords the page covers naturally in its headings and body. "Physio Leeds", "physiotherapist Leeds" and "physiotherapy clinic Leeds" are one group with one page. "Physio exercises for lower back pain" returns articles rather than clinics, and is another group.

Group by intent rung as well as meaning. "Boiler service Leeds" and "how often should a boiler be serviced" share most of their words and need different pages: one searcher wants a booking, the other an answer. The buying-intent ladder tells you which rung each group is on, and the rung tells you the page type.

The free Keyword clustering tool runs this test: it checks the live results for each keyword you paste and groups the ones won by the same pages.

Give every group one page, and every page one job

The map is a plain table: keyword group, primary keyword, intent rung, page type, the URL that owns it (or "new") and a status column. Five rules keep it honest.

1. One primary keyword per page, unique across the whole site. If two rows share a URL, one of them is wrong.
2. Page type follows the rung. Emergency and Ready groups go to service pages, location pages and the homepage; Service-seeking groups to service pages; Problem-aware and Informational groups to articles.
3. The homepage takes the broadest commercial term for the business plus your brand, never a specific service term a service page should own, or the two cannibalise each other.
4. A page with no keyword has no search job. Contact, about and policy pages are fine without one; a service page without one needs a keyword or a rethink.
5. A group with no page is a page to build. Those rows are your content plan.

Don't force a keyword onto a page that doesn't say that thing. If the best match for "emergency plumber Leeds" mentions emergencies once near the bottom, either the page is rewritten around the keyword or the keyword gets a new page. The map is a proposal until the page's title, heading and first paragraph agree with it.

Fix the collisions you already have

A new map almost always exposes pages already fighting. Resolve each collision the same way.

1. Confirm it. Search the primary keyword with the site: operator (site:yourdomain.com physiotherapy) and count the pages Google returns, or filter Search Console's Performance report by the query and open the Pages tab.
2. Pick a winner. The page that ranks higher, has more links pointing to it and matches the rung wins; that is usually the older page.
3. Merge the loser into the winner. Move any content the winner lacks, then permanently redirect the loser's URL to the winner so its links and history carry over. If the loser genuinely serves a different intent, keep it with a different primary keyword and rewrite its title and heading.
4. Point your internal links at the winner, with anchor text that uses the primary keyword consistently. Linking to two pages with the same anchor tells Google they're interchangeable.
5. Leave it alone for a few weeks. Positions wobble daily; what matters is whether the winner's URL becomes the only one Google shows.

What to take away

• Two of your pages targeting one keyword split the signals between them, and neither ranks as well as one would.
• Keywords that return the same results belong on the same page; keywords on different rungs never do, however similar the words.
• The keyword map gives every page one primary keyword and every keyword group one page, and the page type follows the intent rung.
• Existing collisions are fixed by picking a winner, merging and redirecting the loser, and pointing every internal link at one page.

Next

With every keyword assigned to a page, the next chapter covers how those pages should link to each other in Site architecture and internal links.