case study - fine dining guide (part 1 - keyword mapping scheme)
I’m going to do a case study series on a new client site, http://www.travelsintaste.com. This is Part 1.
In my career, I have spent countless hours talking with prospective clients about the importance of doing web marketing prior to your website launch (i.e. during design or redesign phase). My client did a very respectacle amount of research, market analysis and planning prior to her website launch and I would like to share some of the ways in which this dedication to planning and strategy has benefited her.
First, in creating a website marketing strategy for TravelsInTaste.com, I performed extensive keyword research. Her website is comprised of numerous related pages (restaurant listings) located in a handful of US cities. Due to the sheer size of the site and number of locations, it became clear early on that avoiding duplicate content and creating an easy-to-manage SEO strategy would be our two primary goals.
To that end, I created a “keyword mapping scheme.” (i.e. rules for assigning keywords to content pages with as little duplication as possible) As you might imagine, coming up with unique keywords for hundreds of web pages is a daunting task. To create uniqueness, I used a series of rules and variations to keywords. For instance, for New York restaurants we used New York City, NYC and Manhattan as alternate ways to describe the location. In addition, we used modifying words like romantic, top rated, exclusive, fine and outdoor to differentiate keywords like “dining” and “restaurant.”
With the keyword mapping scheme clearly stated, it became an easy task to assign keywords to different pages and create optimized content. When new pages are added, optimizing these pages becomes a much simpler task. This became increasingly important as the website when from 300 to 400 and even 500+ pages! And, as the client expands the site to include new restaurants and locations, a clear process has been put in place to make optimization more manageable.
In Part 2, I will discuss link building preparation. Stay tuned…
