How should you select and group keywords, and plan optimization for the corresponding pages?

Start by selecting keywords relevant to your business, audience needs, and website’s area of expertise. Then group keywords that share the same search intent and whose underlying needs can be fully met on a single page, and map them to suitable existing pages. Plan new pages only when no suitable page exists. Set priorities by balancing business importance, search demand, and ranking difficulty. Do not simply chase search volume or create a separate page for every keyword.

Choose keywords based on relevance, then assess demand and difficulty

Semrush’s keyword mapping approach recommends starting with your website’s niche, products, or services and choosing topics supported by knowledge and experience. For example, a dog training website could find related keywords around puppy training and canine behavior, rather than including keywords simply because they are popular.

• Search intent: Are users looking for information, comparing options, or making a purchase?
• Search demand: Use estimated average monthly search volumes to assess whether people are searching for the topic.
• Ranking difficulty and business goals: For a new website, consider keyword groups with lower ranking difficulty first. To reach audiences closer to making a purchase, consider keywords with commercial intent.

These are factors to weigh, not guarantees of rankings. Even when choosing long-tail keywords, you still need to assess relevance and search intent.

Check whether one page can meet the needs of each group

Grouping is not just about putting queries together because they contain the same words. Keywords in each group should cover closely related topics and share the same intent, with searchers’ needs met on a single page. For broader topics, a pillar page can provide an overview, supported by pages focused on subtopics and connected through internal links.

AI or clustering tools can help with initial organization, but manual review is still necessary. A 2025 Screaming Frog article notes that automated clustering sometimes divides groups too narrowly and may mix informational and transactional keywords in the same group. Merge duplicate page concepts, regroup keywords that serve different needs, and remove irrelevant groups.

When mapping pages, check the content—not just the URL or title

Open each existing page to confirm that its content covers the group’s topic and satisfies the search intent. If you find a suitable page, record its URL and mark it as “To optimize.” If no suitable page exists, leave the group’s target URL blank for now and mark the planned page as “To create.” AI-suggested mappings also need this check; do not accept them solely because the URL or title looks similar.

Use a keyword map to organize these plans. For each group, record the page type, proposed title, business importance, target URL, and status so you can see which page the keywords belong to and what needs to happen next.

At Procrustes, our services include planning pages for partner websites and turning questions that genuinely matter to clients into articles, with ongoing writing and updates.

Plan changes page by page, then track group performance

Review pages marked “To optimize” before investing in new content. Plan each page’s content and title around the search intent of its assigned keywords. Forum participants also recommend checking meta titles, meta descriptions, and heading tags, while avoiding keyword stuffing. These are practical suggestions, not official ranking rules.

Afterward, regularly track rankings for the keywords in each group to see which corresponding pages perform well and which need adjustments. Ranking data can help you review your strategy, but a single rise or fall is not enough to conclude that a particular change caused the result.