A Color-coded Framework for Your SEO Keyword Strategy

One of the most fundamental steps of search engine optimization (SEO), as well as paid search advertising, is identifying and prioritizing keywords. Yet this is easier said than done, and marketing teams often end up proceeding based on gut instinct. This is the wrong approach.

While keyword selection may involve some subjectivity, it is essential to have an organized plan for improving search performance. After all, according to BrightEdge Research, 68% of website traffic begins with a search. Putting together an SEO keyword strategy requires forethought and time, but once deployed, companies will achieve much better results and more efficiently acquire high-value search traffic.

To help with this selection, I developed a prioritization framework for SEO keywords that I’ve adapted over time based on project results. The strategy involves prioritizing keywords in color-coded buckets. The purpose is to create a simple visualization that can guide digital marketers with various levels of marketing experience to achieve advanced outcomes.

This guide to SEO keyword research and prioritization works best for websites with at least moderate traffic and sales traction. After all, it takes time to begin ranking for keywords, and younger websites will typically have far fewer keywords that digital marketers can prioritize and amplify in the short and medium term. While this keyword search strategy works for new websites (assuming they are correctly set up to appear in searches), it will take longer to achieve results than it would for more established ones.

Identifying SEO Keywords

The first step to developing a keyword strategy for SEO is to compile a list of words and phrases related to the brand. To illustrate this, let’s imagine your company is a pet store in Washington, DC, called Happy Hedgehog Homes. As the name suggests, this shop sells hedgehogs and all the supplies needed to keep them as pets: cages, hideouts (sometimes called homes), food, toys, and other accessories. The company also has an online shop, so the keywords must capture both local and national search intent, as well as heed other e-commerce considerations. Since these are niche products, it is best to gather all keywords related to hedgehogs, cages, accessories, and other items that people would buy in your store without worrying about search volume, ranking difficulty, or other factors.

Several approaches can be used to identify the keywords:

• Brainstorming: The simplest option is to put yourself into the mindset of your target audience and brainstorm any keywords they would type in a search engine to find your product or service (or keywords you hope they would type). It can also be good to have brainstorming sessions with people inside and outside your company. Be sure to think about simple terms related to your brand (e.g., “hedgehog cage”), as well as mid-tail key phrases (e.g., “hedgehog cage ideas”) and long-tail key phrases (e.g., “how big should a hedgehog cage be”). Mid- and long-tail key phrases will have less search volume but often capture more specific search intent.
• SEO tools: You can use various SEO tools to analyze your website and current keyword lists and generate additional keywords. The tools can also evaluate the keywords for competitiveness and traffic. Semrush, Ahrefs, and SE Ranking are among the most robust options and can help with much more than selecting keywords—but these require paid accounts. Google has a good free keyword discovery tool called Google Ads Keyword Planner that can be accessed with a Google Ads account. Other free SEO tools include those offered by AnswerThePublic and WordStream.
• Competitor analysis: It’s also valuable to identify keywords used on competing websites. You can use the SEO keyword tools above to determine which keywords these websites have prioritized. These keywords are important to track so that by implementing your SEO strategy, you can eventually outrank these competitors.

One note about location: Because Happy Hedgehog Homes has a physical storefront, you would especially want to include targeted keywords for Washington, DC, and the surrounding states and areas. These could include phrases like “pet stores in Georgetown” and “buy hedgehogs in DC.” Google will also recognize the location for people using search queries like “exotic pet stores near me.”

Don’t worry if you aren’t fully satisfied with your initial list of keywords. The list will continuously change and grow, and you should continue to add more words over time through an ongoing process of evaluation and refinement.

Organizing SEO Keywords With Priority Buckets

Once you have an initial list of SEO keywords and phrases, it’s time to begin categorizing them according to their priority level. My keyword marketing strategy involves four categories, which I conceptualize as color-coded buckets: green, yellow, blue, and red. The green bucket includes keywords that will be prioritized in the short term; the yellow bucket includes medium-term priorities; the blue bucket contains longer-term priorities; and the red bucket includes nonpriority terms that can still be tracked. Additional factors such as ranking and search intent also go into the prioritization, as I describe below.

This four-bucket framework will help you plan how to develop SEO keywords by sequencing content creation, backlink development, and paid search advertising according to business priorities and current rankings. Initially, all the keywords may seem equally important, but dividing the terms into green, yellow, blue, and red priorities makes the process more systematic and manageable. A spreadsheet is an easy way to maintain the buckets (I recommend creating a worksheet for each color). However, many of the SEO tools mentioned above offer options for tracking and categorizing keywords.

Green Bucket Keywords: Short-term SEO Priorities

The green bucket includes keywords for which your website already ranks in the top five results on Google, even if the search volume is low. (Google’s ranking—as opposed to Bing, Yahoo, or other search engines—is the most crucial for SEO, given that Google captures 90% of global search traffic.) As green keywords are your most precious ones, you need to take care of them to ensure they remain on top and ideally reach the No. 1 position. Your ultimate goal is to collect as many keywords in the green bucket as possible.

You may think your website won’t have any high-ranking keywords, but at a minimum, you will likely have some that are closely related to your brand. For instance, when it comes to Happy Hedgehog Homes, the company’s website should hopefully be the top result for the brand name. Other terms like “hedgehog homes,” “where to buy hedgehog homes,” “happy hedgehogs,” and “hedgehogs Washington, DC” might also have top rankings and should be considered green keywords.

After adding keywords connected with your brand, consider the main phrases you would use to describe your company and products and check the ranking for these. These phrases should be specific and capture the brand voice, and they generally belong in your page’s meta title and description and on the main landing page. In the hedgehog example, one of these phrases could be “the most fun and affordable hedgehog cages.” Then explore variations of these terms. Phrases like this may have low search volume, but that’s OK—if you rank well for them, you still want to track them in your green bucket. Don’t be concerned if you don’t have many green keywords to start. It takes time to build these up.

Next, what do you do with those high-priority keywords in the green bucket? Because your content already ranks well for these terms in Google, you must protect their search position like a fortress. Keyword placement is crucial: Be sure to feature the terms in the titles and body text for well-written, informative content. (Remember that Google prioritizes information that demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, or E-E-A-T.) Add relevant internal and external links to these pages and acquire backlinks from other high-quality websites to underscore the credibility of your content. You can also run paid search advertising for these terms, but because they are already ranking high for organic search, set a lower cost per click (CPC) for them.

Yellow Bucket Keywords: Medium-term SEO Priorities

The yellow bucket includes targeted keywords for which your webpages are showing up in the top 50 results on Google but not the top five. These are medium-term priorities and will require time and effort to increase their search position. Yellow keywords are especially important if they capture high-value search intent that leads to conversions. You should include these keywords on your website whenever possible, develop new content as needed, and add internal links and backlinks.

Yellow keywords are particularly suited for paid search advertising since they are high-value terms for which your content might not be discovered as easily through organic searches, given their moderate ranking. Use a rank tracker such as Semrush or Ahrefs to monitor how they trend over time. Eventually, you want to elevate yellow terms into the green bucket, a goal which means that even though they are mid-term priorities, they will generally require more investment than the terms already in the green bucket.

Blue Bucket Keywords: Long-term SEO Priorities

Keywords in the blue bucket are often general terms or phrases for which you would like to rank high in the longer term but that do not currently rank within the top 50. These terms could take months or even years to elevate into the yellow and green categories. If your site is newer or you haven’t done much SEO development, most of your keywords may be in the blue bucket. This is fine. With time and strategic effort, you can move your blue keywords into yellow and, eventually, green buckets.

As some of these terms begin to rank higher and garner additional traffic due to a combination of content creation, backlink development, and paid ads, they will help increase website credibility. This, in turn, will help the website rank better across the board.

For Happy Hedgehog Homes, the blue bucket keywords might include “hedgehogs,” “hedgehog pets,” “take care of hedgehogs,” and “buy hedgehogs.” Because these are more general terms, they will usually have more competition and higher search volume but less buyer intent. Therefore, while these keywords can be used for paid search ads, the investment should generally be lower than those in the yellow bucket.

Red Bucket Keywords: Nonpriority SEO Terms

The remaining keywords are not priorities to rank and can be put into the red bucket. Nonpriority terms typically have low relevance for buyer conversion and do not generate meaningful organic traction. That doesn’t mean these terms are bad, but it’s not worth focusing your time and effort on them. Over time, red bucket terms may become more useful and move to other buckets, but to start with, they are good to document for occasional reference and competitor tracking. They may even indicate future opportunities to expand your offerings. If you prefer to minimize keyword quantity, you can remove them from your tracking, but I advise keeping an eye on them.

The red category for Happy Hedgehog Homes could include terms like “pet accessories,” “how to take care of pets,” or even “rabbit cages.” The difficulty of ranking these keywords and their low conversion potential mean they are not worth actively prioritizing for content creation, backlink development, or paid ads. In fact, to prevent paid ads from appearing for keywords that are irrelevant to your business objectives, you can include them as negative keywords when setting up the ad in Google. However, if the company expands to offer supplies and accessories for other pets, red bucket terms could move to the blue bucket and possibly continue upward from there.

Maintaining SEO Buckets to Improve Keyword Rankings

As you continue using this strategic SEO keyword framework, check the rankings of the keywords in your four buckets each month and pull a report of them, either using an SEO tool (which can generate automated reports) or from your spreadsheet. This audit allows you to track whether your SEO efforts are working. You can check the status more frequently than that, but rankings can fluctuate in the short term, causing needless anxiety if you check them too often.

You will also want to continue updating the keywords in each bucket to match their new status as you track them. A yellow bucket keyword that has successfully improved to a high-level Google ranking can become a green term. Based on new products, a red bucket keyword could become more important, while discontinued products or offerings may result in a yellow or blue keyword becoming red, as the searches are no longer relevant. This keyword review should occur every three to four months.

Over time, this systematic tracking and evaluation of keywords—and the corresponding SEO and paid search efforts—will return repeated (and often growing) dividends. A process that may have previously involved guesswork or intuition will become structured and measurable. This visual categorization of keywords can also be shown in reports to stakeholders or clients who may not understand the details of digital marketing. Organizations of all types can benefit from the traffic and leads that result from improved keyword prioritization.