SEO – Focus Keyword

“Focus keyword” is the keyword for which you want to search engine to rank your page when people search. This is the most important ‘word’ or ‘sentence’ in your webpage that you target for users and Search Engine Optimization.

Focus Keyword in WordPress:

‘Focus keyword’ is the term made popular by WordPress Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin provides an input field for your Focus Keyword and analyzes SEO of your page’s content with respect to this keyword.

Yoast SEO plugin evaluates your page title, meta description, headings, links, images in page content for the keyword. Thereafter, it provides a list of suggestions on how to improve the content for SEO.


How to choose Focus Keyword for websites:

Choose the most relevant keyword from your content which people search for. Here are the Tips to choose the best Focus Keyword for your website:

  • First, shortlist few common sentences & words related to your content which people usually search for.
  • Check shortlisted keywords with Google Autocomplete. You will find a few more popular terms & sentences.
  • Search with “Focus Keyword” that you want to use and see what Search engine result suggests. In Google, you can check related search terms at the end of the list.
  • It is good to keep your focus keyword length short from 2 to 5 words (related to the product or specific topic). For example: “SEO Tutorial”, and “Buy Budget Smartphones”
  • Depending on the nature of page content, commonly used phrase & long-tail keywords can also be useful. For example: “How to Optimize your website for SEO”, and “Tips for travelling the world” can be used for blogs.
  • Now you have a final list of shortlisted keywords. Choose the most relevant for your content, user, and search engines.
  • Always choose unique keywords on each page. You can try a few variations to cover related terms on different pages.

Optimize content for Focus Keyword.

Once you finalized your focus keyword, you need to optimize your content for your keyword.

For Search engine optimization, your keyword should be present in various sections of your webpage. As you have selected the most important word for your page, now talk about it. Here are the places where you need to make use of your keyword efficiently:

  • Use in the Webpage title
  • Use in meta description with a short and relevant paragraph about page content
  • In Webpage URL (using page or file names)
  • In H1 tag as well as in few other heading tags if relevant
  • Having your focus keyword in the main content a few times is also important
  • Use in the image alt attribute and image file name if relevant
  • Include in relevant internal & external link’s title attribute

Note: Do not overuse or spam using Focus Keywords

It is good to use your keyword in the main content but you should not overuse it. Think from the user perspective before search engine. Content should not look like spammy or filled with overused keywords. Keep balance. For example, WordPress Yoast SEO plugin advises using focus keyword less than 2.5% as compared to complete page content.


Tools to analyze Focus Keyword

If you are using WordPress website, Yoast SEO plugin will do everything for you. Simply, insert your chosen focus keyword. Yoast will provide you with a list of recommendation about what can be improved.

As discussed earlier, Google Autosuggest, Related terms, Competitor’s website can also help you choosing good Focus keyword.

Google Keyword Planner is another useful tool to check popular terms for search engines.

Learn more about Focus Keywords:


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