Welcome to the second video in our seven day series on getting the most out of Wordtracker's Keywords tool.

Today, we'll investigate keyword research in more depth. We'll look at how to set up a keyword map that can either mirror an existing website, or help you set up the structure for a new site.

It's an easy process, and the benefits of a well-structured site that makes sense to human visitors and search engine robots can be enormous.

Here's the rest of the series

In the 'Profit from Keywords' series, we're going to show you:

Day 1: Search engine success starts with keywords
Day 3: Titles and Descriptions: Vital elements of your page
Day 4: Site audits: Things you never knew about your site
Day 5: Keyword Rankings: Monitor your progress
Day 6: Using keywords as linking text
Day 7: Expand into new markets and beat the competition

Once you've watched the tutorial, click here to sign up for a free 7-day trial of the new Keywords tool

Did you know we offer a risk-free guarantee? At any time during the first 30 days you can ask for your money back and we'll happily refund you.

Click here to learn more about the Keywords tool

Read the transcript

Welcome to the second of our 7 day video series. In the Day 1 video we looked at how search engines work, and how to use the quick keyword research tool to find competitive keywords to use on our web pages.

Today, we'll go a little more in-depth into keyword research and look at how to quickly set up a keyword map that can either mirror your own website, or help you set up the structure of a new one based on your keyword research. It's an easy process, and the benefits of a well-structured site that makes sense to human visitors and search engine robots can be enormous.

The Keyword Map is a powerful tool which can give you a clear overview of your work on a single page:

This is the kind of thing we’re working towards - we can see our _tea) home page Niche in Level 1, our Categories in Level 2, and our content or product pages on Level 3. This is a fairly simplified map - you’ll need 25 pages or so to start off with so that the search engines recognize that you’re actually making an effort to provide useful content, and you may need more Levels - perhaps you need to break things down into sub-categories, or perhaps you need to use Level 1 for the head of a category rather than the home page - in which case it’s helpful to set up a Project for each category.

You'll need to set up a Campaign to create your own Keyword Map, which couldn't be simpler. From the Campaign Manager, just enter the domain you're working on ...

... or give the Campaign a name if you don't have a specific domain to work with right now.

We'll take you to the Dashboard, where you'll see (after a moment or so) some stats on your site (if you entered a domain), and some boxes underneath.

The leftmost of these is the keyword research Projects box. Just click the '+' button to set up your Project.

Enter in a word or short phrase that broadly describes your market - for example, if you're selling fruit, enter fruit. This is important, and we'll see why in a moment.

Choose a territory to get your keywords from - if you select a territory outside the US or UK then any Google keywords you get will be from those regions and you can still choose between UK or US data from Wordtracker. The US data is usually more helpful on a more international level.

Once you've created your Project, we'll take you straight to the Keyword Map, which looks like this.

You'll see a Niche based on your seed word (see now why it was important?) which is in Level 1 and a few suggestions in the left-hand lane, which we call the Unassigned lane. You don't have to use these, they're just there for some inspiration.

You can drag Niches around the map, so it's easy to sort out your site structure and even set up a site structure with keyword research. Make sure you keep your categories well organized so you're providing a clear path for your users to take.

Start by opening your seed Niche to see what's inside. You'll see your Wordtracker list of keywords compiled by default - it's easy to grow that Niche with Google keywords, just by opening that tab.

Filter and sort your lists as we saw in the video yesterday to bring the keywords with potential into view (a high KEI is a good early indicator of this).

If you see a keyword you'd like to build out another Niche from, just click the 'Add Niche' button and we'll create this in the background for you and it'll be in your Keyword Map when you return to it. If your current niche is unassigned, then the new one you create will be as well - otherwise it'll appear as a 'sub-Niche' of the one you're working from.

You might find that you have keywords in one Niche that would be better used in another one - for example, in this cherry Niche in my fruit Project, I've got lots of black cherry keywords. If I already have a black cherry niche, I can move those keywords across just by selecting them and choosing that option from the Actions menu.

I can even set up a brand new Niche with those keywords if I feel that's more appropriate - and I can move keywords to any Niche in any Campaign. This makes sure that your keyword research is flexible as well as organized.

Back to the keyword map, and we can add niches manually in just a couple of clicks ...

... and it's easy to find related keywords for more ideas. Just put in a seed word, click 'Get Related Keywords', and you'll get up to 300 ideas for keywords you can use - again, just use the 'Add Niche' button, and we'll create a Niche for you in the unassigned lane.

This map gives you an idea of what we should be aiming for - a number of clear categories, each with some content there.

You might find you need to use more Levels than this for your site, and it's likely you'll find more Niches to work with than this, but this is the basic shape to aim for.

That's all for our day two tutorial

Tomorrow I'll show you some of the more advanced features of the keyword research tool, including setting up titles and descriptions for your pages, and using the flat view of the keyword map.

More on Keyword Basics

For more on keywords have a look at our Keyword Basics articles

Your thoughts?

We'd love to know what you thought of this video. How useful was it? What did you learn?

And, if you've questions, please let us know below:

About Mal Darwen

Mal Darwen joined Wordtracker in 2008 as part of the Customer Service team, and now as well as running webinars in SEO and how to use the toolset is Product Manager. In the five years since starting with Wordtracker, Mal has also spoken about SEO and keywords at conferences, and has a healthy hand in Wordtracker's tweeting.

When not Wordtracking Mal plays with a band called Praying for the Rain. He also plays guitars and basses with a number of other UK and International artists. He lives in London with his family and two slightly insecure cats.