Choosing the right focus keyword for SEO
Ever wonder which keywords bring the most traffic to your website?
SEO is an important aspect of content creation. Approaching your content strategy with well-researched keywords is one of the best ways to boost your organic traffic. Choosing the right focus keywords can make a considerable difference in optimizing your content for better search engine rankings.
A number of Wordpress SEO plug-ins like Yoast, SEOPress, AIOSEO, RankMath and more offer a focus keyword functionality for every page of your site. These plugins help you analyze and optimize your content for the search term, and rank higher on search engines.
Are you wondering what exactly is a focus keyword, and how to choose the right focus keyword in WordPress? In this article, we take out the guesswork and walk you through the tools and strategies you require to choose the right focus keyword for your website
What is a focus keyword?
In simple terms, a focus keyword (or key phrase) is the primary keyword (or key phrase) that you want a page to rank for. Depending on the search intent, this focus keyword is usually the most popular search term that users type in search engines to look for the content that you have created around the said term. It can be a single word or a multi-word phrase (usually, 1- to 4-words), that represents the topic of your content.
A focus keyword is selected through keyword research, on the basis of a number of factors such as search traffic, competition, conversion rate, and more. Learning about the focus keywords is also helpful as it aligns the writing process with your audiences’ search intent.
However, adding the focus keyword to a page doesn’t automatically improve its search visibility. Once you input the focus keyword for a page in AIOSEO, the content analysis feature offers on-page SEO recommendations as well as suggestions to optimize your content for the search term.
Choosing a focus keyword
If you are new to SEO, conducting keyword research or choosing the right focus keywords for your WordPress site can feel intimidating. However, there are multiple tools and a simple methodology for it. Since keyword research is a huge topic in itself, I would discuss it in a separate post soon.
To begin your keyword research, you can list down the most common search terms for the topics that you cover. This should give you a list of broad keywords and a starting point to drill down and further streamline your keyword strategy. Once you have a list of broad search terms, you can use the following tools to get started with your keyword research:
1. Google Autocomplete
2. Google Trends
3. Ubersuggest
4. Answer The Public
5. MozBar
6. Semify Web Grader
7. SEMrush
Google Autocomplete
Go to google.com and type in a broad keyword from your list. The autocomplete feature of Google shows suggestions for related long-tail keyphrases, by adding a phrase in the beginning, or middle, or end of the term you have keyed in. Going through the various autocomplete suggestions, you can gather a general idea of what people are searching for, and which keyphrases are more popular and competitive.
Try different variations of Google Autocomplete Suggestions to get more targeted keywords
Google Autocomplete Tips
- Choose relevant long-tail phrases which are less competitive.
- Get more specific by adding location, year, or type of services.
- Group synonyms and LSI keywords together to use as secondary or additional keyphrases for the same page.
- No need to include “best” or “top” or “free” or other similar non-descriptive adjectives.
Google Trends
Google Trends evaluates past search queries and search volumes to determine whether a keyword is trending or declining. You can also filter the Google trends for specific time periods and locations, to find out the busiest seasons, market trends and patterns, and geographic interests.
For instance, if you look at the global search trends of the past five years for three premier football clubs — FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool, you can see which football club is most searched for –
Check search patterns and trends and run comparisons for different keyphrases through Google Trends
Not only this, but you also get insights into seasonal spikes as the football season starts. You also get a region-wise breakdown and comparison for these three search terms.
Get a region-wise breakdown for your search patterns to create targeted content
And, you can also discover the related search terms for each keyphrase that you put in Google Trends Console –
With related queries, add to the list of your long-tail and LSI keywords
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a free keyword tool that shows a keyword’s trends along with its monthly search volume, and estimated keyword difficulty. It also has a Chrome Extension that lets you check Domain Authority (DA), referring domains, estimated visits and social share count for each search result pertaining to a keyphrase. All of these factors can be used to gauge competition
Ubersuggest details out monthly searches, CPC, and keyword difficulty for chosen keywords
Ubersuggest Chrome Extension lets you see the search result’s domain authority, visits, social shares, and referring domains.
Answer The Public
Answer The Public is a freemium tool that visualizes search queries, keywords, and suggested autocomplete searches. It helps you find questions, prepositions, and comparison keywords related to your chosen keyword. Presented in a visual search cloud, it also presents the more popular searches in a darker color. The question keywords can be used for FAQ-based rich snippets, the preposition keywords can be used as secondary keywords, and comparison keywords can generate further content ideas.
Use Answer The Public to find FAQ keywords and FAQ rich snippets
Use Answer The Public to find secondary and LSI keywords
Use Answer The Public to find more content ideas
MozBar
MozBar Chrome Extension offers the DA (domain authority) and PA (page authority) for a given keyword’s search results. Since higher DA and PA indicate higher competition, it is advised to select a keyword for which you can compete with websites having a similar domain authority to yours.
Check each search results DA and PA with MozBar Chrome Extension
MozBar Tips
- Google a keyword and check the DA + PA of the top results through the chrome extension.
- While broad keyphrases usually have high DA + PA, long-tail keyphrases have low DA + PA.
- Choose a keyword where top results have a similar DA (domain authority) to your WordPress website.
- Build your PA by improving the content and pointing internal links to the page.
- Build your DA by getting more links to your site.
Semify Web Grader
Semify Web Grader is a tool that runs competitor analysis and shows the keywords your competitors rank for. You can compare up to 3 websites at once. The tool generates all the keywords that these sites rank for. By sifting through the search volumes, you can choose your own keywords to target.
Compare your keywords against competitors with Semify
SEMrush
SEMrush is a paid tool that can do various tasks that makes advanced keyword planning easier. It can evaluate your keywords against your competition, and give you keyword suggestions that are more targeted and easier to rank for. It can also show you long-tail and LSI keywords related to a search term, offer search volumes and keyword difficulties, track the performance of your keywords, and much more. As an end-to-end SEO tool, it also analyzes the backlinks your site has, evaluates the referring domains of your competitors, and helps you discover opportunities to improve your PA and DA. You can avail full benefits of SEMrush through AIOSEO integration with the tool, that lets you manage all your SEO tasks from a single platform.
Once you have a list of keywords that you want to target, here’s how you can narrow down to choose the right focus keyword –
- Choose a keyword that has an ideal search volume vs. keyword difficulty ratio. If your keyword has a low search volume, then targeting that keyword would be of no use. Similarly, if you use a high search-volume keyword that has a high keyword difficulty, you run the risk of competing with high authority sites and your content might not rank well. The ideal case would be to choose a long-tail keyword that has a high search volume and low competition.
- Use long-tail keywords and keyword phrases. While broader keywords are a good point to start your keyword research, creating content around these search terms can amount to a lot of effort with little results. Long-tail keywords have more targeted search results and give you a better chance of increased site traffic and conversion. For instance, ranking for ‘bridal boutique in New York’ is much easier than just ‘bridal boutique’, and since you attract a more targeted audience, there are higher chances of booking an appointment and scoring a sale.
- Check the search engine page results for your selected ‘focus keyword’. Analyzing the type of content shown on the search engine result pages (SERPs) can help you decide which format of content you should create to rank better. For instance, if a search result shows you a lot of videos ranking higher on SERPs, you would want to include a video in your own content as well.
- Optimize the content you already own. While keyword research and using focus keywords is a great strategy to improve your organic SEO rankings, it’s also important to recycle and optimize the existing content on your WordPress site. If you already have some pages and posts that rank well for certain keywords, you can renew the content for these pages using the focus keywords that are most similar to the content already written.
- Rinse and repeat. Keyword research and content optimization for better SEO rankings is an ongoing process. Once you choose the right focus keywords for your WordPress website and start ranking well for those keywords, renew the whole process to discover more opportunities to improve your website’s organic traffic and conversion rate.
How to set a focus keyword in WordPress?
The aforementioned plug-ins have a separate field to add a focus keyword for each page and post of your WordPress website.
To set up a focus keyword on a page/post, you need to edit the page/post and then go to the “General Settings” tab of the plugin. Here, you can enter your focus keyword in the “Focus Keyphrase” input field, along with other information fields such as Page/Post title, Meta Description, Snippet Preview, and more.
Some plug-ins also allow you to include additional keyphrases. In the field titled “Additional Keyphrases”, you can also enter LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords that are similar to your focus keyword. One easy way of finding LSI keywords is through the search engine. When you type in your focus keyword in Google and scroll down to the bottom of first-page results, you get a choice of keywords, termed as “Related searches”.
Optimizing your content for the focus keyword
Once you set up a focus keyword for your page, you need to optimize your content for the said keyword. As a general rule, your focus keyword should be used in the following sections of your page –
· Page title
· SEO title
· Web page URL
· Meta description
· H1tag, and other heading tags, if relevant
· Image alt attribute and image file name, if relevant
· Internal and external links’ title attribute, if relevant
· Content body (a few times, without ‘stuffing’ it in forcibly)
While there is no fixed formula on how much to use your chosen focus keyword, you should definitely pay attention to the keyword density. Keyword stuffing comes across as spammy and can result in your site being penalized.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are SEO Keywords?
SEO keywords are the keywords and keyword phrases that allow visitors to find your content via search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Every piece of content that you publish should be optimized around a handful of keywords. Those keywords tell the search engines what your content is about and help them align it to the visitors with similar search phrases and intent.
How do I generate keywords for SEO?
While there are multiple online tools to help you with keyword generation, the easiest way for a novice is to make a list of key topics that you publish on your website. Then go to Google and type one of the keywords into the search box. Long-tail versions of your seed word will be suggested by the Google Auto Suggest feature. These long-tail keywords are especially good SEO keywords for your web pages, as they are easier to rank for.
What is a focus keyword?
As defined earlier, a focus keyword is the keyword that best represents the topic of your article. It’s the single term or a multi-term phrase that you want your article to rank for in search engines.
Should every page have a focus keyword?
The simple answer is — NO. Ideally, you want to use focus keywords for the posts and pages that you want to rank in the long term.
Should I use the same keywords on every page?
Certainly not! The keywords that you use on a given web page should correspond to the topic of that particular page. When you use the same keywords for multiple pages or every page, you lower the site’s SEO ranking through internal competition. Different web pages that cover different topics should employ different keywords that are relevant to that topic.
How do I find focus keywords to use in WordPress?
Google Autocomplete is a great tool to find focus keywords for a WordPress site. Start with typing a broad phrase, look at the Autocomplete results, and Ask The Public to discover related LSI keywords. With free Chrome extensions and tools like SEMrush, you can learn each keyword phrase’s monthly searches and estimated SEO competition, to choose the best-suited focus keyword.
Which tools can I use to find focus keywords?
There are multiple free and paid tools that can help you with your keyword research, content planning, and choosing the focus keywords. Some of the popular tools include Google Autocomplete, Google Trends, Search Console, Moz Keyword Explorer, Semify Web Grader, Ubersuggest, Ask the Public, MozBar, and SEMrush.
How do I know if a keyword is competitive?
Many keyword research tools listed above show a keyword’s estimated SEO difficulty. Alternatively, you can install a keyword research Chrome Extension and look at each search results’ PA (page authority), DA (domain authority), inbound links, and other SEO signals to determine its competitiveness.
How do I find a keyword’s monthly searches?
Both Ubersuggest and SEMrush offer monthly search data for a given keyword.
Should I target long-tail keywords?
Most websites should target long-tail keywords, along with broad keywords. While long-tail keywords don’t have as many monthly searches as broad keywords, they are less competitive, more targeted, and usually easier to rank for, even if your website is new and has a low domain authority.
How do I target multiple keywords?
To target multiple keywords, find two or three keywords that are very similar. The primary keyword a.k.a. your focus keyword (usually, with the best search volume-to-keyword difficulty ratio) can be used in on-page SEO elements like post title, SEO title, URL, and a couple of times in the main content. The secondary keywords a.k.a. additional keywords can be used a few times in heading title tags, and within the main content, to show up as partial matches in the search engine results.
Conclusion
Choosing the right focus keyword for WordPress can help your website rank better in organic search rankings. To summarize, use tools like Google Autocomplete, Google Trends, SEMrush, UberSuggest, and more at your disposal for keyword research. Choose the right focus keyword by considering search volume against the competition, and optimize your content around the chosen focus keyword.
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