Creating a Keyword Plan Spreadsheet for SEO
Step | Action | Purpose |
---|---|---|
1 | Preparing Keyword Plan Spreadsheet | To organize keywords in a manageable manner |
2 | Labeling the Worksheet | To help in tracking of keywords' usage |
3 | Understanding Keywords | To assess keyword's search volume, competition & relevancy |
4 | Creating a keyword strategy | To focus on the most important keywords |
5 | Analysing keyword types | To identify use of short-tail & long-tail keywords |
6 | Determining Importance of Keywords | To prioritize keywords for effective SEO strategy |
7 | Rearranging Keywords | To extract keyword variations with potential search data |
8 | Creating Raw Keywords worksheet | To have an unexpected list of potential search terms |
9 | Creating primary & secondary keywords worksheet | Differentiation of important & supplementary keywords |
10 | Establishing SEO Strategy | To create content optimized for both search engines and target audience |
This article provides an overview of how to use a keyword plan spreadsheet to organize and analyze keywords for SEO purposes. It explains how to migrate keywords to a spreadsheet, label the worksheets, and analyze them for search volume, competition, and relevancy. It also explains creating a keyword strategy focusing on the most important keywords. By understanding how to prepare a keyword plan spreadsheet and how to use the data it provides, SEO practitioners can create optimized content for search engines.
Introduction
Preparing Your Keyword Plan Spreadsheet
Labeling the Worksheet
Understanding Keywords
Conclusion
Introduction: Regarding SEO, keyword research is an essential step. It allows you to identify the terms and phrases that users are searching for and create content tailored to those searches. But before you can begin to use those keywords, you need to organize them in a way that makes them easy to manage. That’s where the keyword plan spreadsheet comes in.
Preparing Your Keyword Plan Spreadsheet
If your keyword list is not yet in a spreadsheet, then now is the time to migrate to one. Start with a new file. Label your first worksheet as Raw Keywords, and put every keyword you’ve come up with into column A. This is only an initial, unrefined list of potential search terms.
A quick reminder: “keyword” is a general term for a group of related words that will be used in a search query. For example, here are four separate but similar keywords of varying lengths:
Pink waterproof iPhone case
Waterproof iPhone case
Pink iPhone case
iPhone case
Many of your keywords will be as similar as those are. Even though they’re almost the same and may lead to essentially the same results, they all have different search data. They will provide different levels of value and opportunity. You could change the word order and come up with four more keywords with different search data. For now, go with whatever makes the most sense to you.
Labeling the Worksheet
Once you’ve populated the Raw Keywords worksheet with your keywords, you’ll need to label the other worksheets. These labels will help you track your keywords and ensure you’re using the right ones for each purpose.
For example, a worksheet labeled “Primary Keywords” could contain the most important keywords for your content. You could also have a worksheet labeled “Secondary Keywords” containing less critical keywords that you’ll use to supplement your primary ones.
Understanding Keywords
Once you’ve labeled your worksheets, it’s time to analyze your keywords. You’ll want to look at search volume, competition, and relevancy. You’ll also want to look at the different types of keywords that you’re using. Are they short-tail keywords (one or two words)? Long-tail keywords (three or more words)? Or a combination of both?
Once you’ve determined which keywords are the most important, you’ll want to create a strategy that focuses on those keywords. This strategy should include where to use the keywords, how often to use them, and how to optimize them.
Conclusion: Creating a keyword plan spreadsheet is essential to any SEO strategy. It helps you organize your keywords and analyze their search data, so you can create a keyword strategy to help you reach your goals. By understanding how to prepare your keyword plan spreadsheet and how to use the data it provides, you’ll be well on your way to creating content optimized for search engines and tailored to your target audience's needs.
A well-crafted keyword plan spreadsheet is the foundation of a successful SEO strategy.
David Lipper is an experienced and successful SEO professional. He has worked in the industry since 1997 and has been with his current company since 2006.
David is a highly sought-after consultant and speaker and has given presentations on SEO at various conferences worldwide. He is also a contributing writer for Search Engine Land.
When he's not working or writing about SEO, David enjoys spending time with his wife and two young children.