When you are building a webpage or a blog post, you want it to be optimized so that when people are searching on a search engine like Google, your website will come out at the top of the result. We call this the focus keyphrase. The keyword that your website is optimized to rank for. If you are wondering How To Use Focus Keyphrase in WordPress, read on.
A focus keyphrase is a primary topic for your page or post. It is the keyword that your target customers are searching on the search engine and that you want your website to show on the top so people can click on your website and see what you are offering.
Today, we will be sharing how to use focus keyphrase in WordPress to improve your website SEO.
What is Focus Keyphrase in WordPress?
In WordPress, a focus keyphrase is a specific word or phrase that you want your content to rank for in search engines. It’s also known as a focus keyword or target keyword. When you create content, you can choose a focus keyphrase that you want to optimize for, and WordPress will analyze your content to see if it is well-optimized for that keyword.
The focus keyphrase plays a significant role in helping search engines to understand your page or post. It helps them determine if your content is relevant to a user’s search query. For example, if you were writing about the best web hosting company for WordPress, then your focus keyphrase could be “best WordPress web hosting”. You can have multiple keyphrases in one content. However, there is only one focus keyphrase and other complementary keyphrases.
In WordPress, you can use an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO to help you to choose and optimize your focus keyphrase. Yoast SEO will analyse your content and gives you suggestions on how to improve your SEO. This includes optimizing your focus keyphrase in your title, subheading, main content, meta description and etc. By choosing a relevant and well-optimized focus keyphrase, you can improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive more traffic to your website.
How to Research For Your Focus Keyphrase in WordPress
To determine which keyphrase to focus on on your page, there are a few ways to do this.
1. Brainstorm Ideas
The first step in researching a focus keyphrase is to brainstorm ideas. Think about what your post is about and what terms people might use to search for it. You can use free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, Answerthepublic or UberSuggest to see what people are searching for and what is low competition.
2. Research the search volume and competition level
Once you have the list of keywords that you want to focus on, you should also check their search volume and competition. You don’t want to focus on a keyword that people are not searching for. Or a keyword that is very competitive and impossible to rank for. Search volume refers to the number of searches a keyword gets in a given period, normally a month. Competition refers to how difficult it is to rank for that keyword. Ideally, you want to choose a keyword with high search volume and low competition.
You can use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google’s Keyword Planner to check search volume and competition. These tools will also suggest related keywords and show you how difficult it is to rank for each one.
3. Analyze the SERP
Once you’ve identified a few potential focus keyphrases, it’s important to analyze the search engine results page (SERP). Look at the top-ranking pages for each keyphrase and see what they have in common. Do they have long-form content? Do they use multimedia? Are they optimized for mobile?
By analyzing your competitor, you will have an idea of what they are doing and what you can do to outrank them. You can identify gaps in the content and find ways to differentiate your post from the competition.
4. Decide on Your Focus Keyphrase
Based on your research, choose a focus keyphrase that meets the following criteria:
- High search volume
- Low competition
- Relevant to your post
- Differentiated from the competition
Once you’ve chosen your focus keyphrase, make sure to include it in your post’s title, meta description, and throughout the content. However, make sure not to overdo it, as keyword stuffing can actually harm your SEO.
How to Properly Use Focus Keyphrase in WordPress
For this post, we will be using Yoast SEO, which is one of the best WordPress SEO plugins that we use for our website as well. There are other options like All in One SEO which works like charm as well.
Don’t worry if you are using a different SEO plugin because most SEO plugin works on a similar concept. You can have multiple focus keyphrases for your posts.
Firstly, you need to install and activate the Yoast SEO for WordPress plugin. On your first launch, there will be a setup wizard that will help you to configure the SEO based on your website preference.
Setting The Focus Keyword in WordPress
After the setup, head to your post edit page or add a new post or page.
When you scroll down the screen, you will find the Yoast SEO setting section below the main content area.
Here, you will find the focus keyphrase, SEO Title, and Meta description tag configuration part. Enter the focus keyphrase that you selected and then, look at the recommendations to optimize your content based on the keyphrase.
Simply enter your focus keyphrase and click on the Add Focus Keyphrase button.
As soon as you set a focus keyphrase, All in One SEO will analyze your content for that particular keyphrase and will show you a score.
How to Optimize Your Content for SEO
When you are optimizing your content for on-page SEO, there are a few parameters that will be guided by the SEO tool. If you are using the Yoast SEO tool like us, below are some suggestions that you will be getting.
1. Focus Keyphrase in SEO Title
In your SEO title, you should have your focus keyphrase. This is to enable the search engine crawler to identify your content faster.
The SEO plugin will use your post title as the SEO title. Hence, if you have your focus keyword in your post title, you will comply with this. However, you can also change your SEO title in the plugin setting area to change the SEO title for the SEO crawler to recognize your content better.
Your post title needs to be eye-catching and attractive for your audiences but might not be the right one for the search engine ranking. If the search terms appear at the beginning of your SEO title, it will be more likely for the searchers to click on your link and read your content. And this Is why you can choose and edit your SEO title on the Yoast SEO plugin.
2. Focus Keyphrase in Meta Description
The Meta description is the short SEO description that will show up in the search result that summarizes your post. By default, it will be the post excerpt. But if you are using Yoast SEO, It will always prompt you to write a separate meta description.
In your meta description, there are some rules like the character limit not being more than 160 characters and you need to include your focus keywords in the meta description.
for that particular content. By default, the plugin will pick it up from the post excerpt. The reason being 160 characters is to ensure your meta description Is shown fully on the search result instead of partially shown due to the display size limit by the search engine.
As this is the second Impression about your website after your SEO title, it is very important that you have some clickbait or hook to attract your potential customers to click.
3. Focus Keyphrase Length
While we always recommend using long-tail keywords, you should not use a very long one. Some SEO plugins will recommend using a focus keyword of fewer than four words. However, it all depends on the niche that you are targeting and the keywords people are searching for in your niche. If you have the data from your keyword research showing that it’s a high-quality keyword that is worth for you to rank for, just go ahead.
A high-quality keyword means a keyword that has sufficient search volume and at the same time has medium to low competition. And these are normally the long tail keywords that Are niche enough that not everyone is targeting to rank for. And there are fewer big brands are ranking for. You are going to have a hard time fighting with them due to their search volume, popularity and marketing budget.
4. Focus Keyphrase in the URL
Your URL tells your website’s professionality and it’s also the key to entering your website. Other than the organic and paid traffic, you would want your target customers able to remember your URL and type In their search bar to visit your website.
WordPress supports SEO-friendly URL structures, where you can choose your URL structure directly from the setting. It can include the post category, post publish date (Year, Month and Day), author name, and post title. You can select from the pre-defined format or your own combination.
Since you will usually have your focus keyword in your post title, the URL should consist of the focus keyword as well. If not, you can also edit the URL manually under the Permalink section in the Post settings column.
5. Focus Keyphrase in Introduction
Your first paragraph or heading is the introduction of your post. You should Include your focus keyword at the beginning of your article or post to let the search engine and your visitors know that they are In the right place about the topic that they are searching for.
And sometimes Google scans your first paragraph as the excerpt of your post and includes that in their ranking algorithm. Hence, it is always better to add your focus keyword there as the main topic of your post.
6. Focus Keyphrase in Subheadings
Subheadings are essential to separate your long posts into smaller parts so that your content Is more readable and scannable. People rarely have the patience to read long texts. Hence adding sections and subheadings will help to make your posts easy to scan and they can read the part they are interested in.
As for search engines, subheadings are important as it helps to increase user experience for your website.
Hence, you need to include the focus keyphrase in your subheadings so that people can know what the section is about and also the search engine can scan through your H1/H2/H3…. tags for your subheadings and find your keywords. Using your focus keyphrase in subheadings will add more weight to it.
7. Focus Keyphrase in Image Alt Attributes
Unless your image is purely for decoration purposes without any meaning, you should always add Image Alt Attributes. Firstly, visual appearances like images and videos are important to increase your website’s attractiveness. SEO will prioritize content with images rather than text-only content. Adding images will help your content rank higher in search engine result pages.
The alt attribute is a meta tag that describes an image for visually impaired users, machine readers, and search engines. Include your focus keyword at least once in the alt attribute for all images inside your article.
Using Multiple Keywords in WordPress
Although you have one main focus keyphrase, this doesn’t limit you to ranking for multiple keywords for a single piece of content. In fact, you can optimize your content based on the focus keyphrase you’ve got from the keyword research process. However, In your content, especially for long-form posts you can include different keywords in your post to rank for more keywords.
Search engines as a source of Information are favours when it comes to a post that is able to provide complete information about the topic someone is searching for. This is why long-form posts tend to rank better organically. We call this the skyscraper post.
And to outrank them, you build another skyscraper with better content and more information. For example, If it’s a post about 10 ways to optimize your website for SEO, you can always create another piece of content with 11 or 12 ways to optimize your website for SEO to outrank them.
Depending on the SEO plugin that you use, you can add an additional keyphrase on top of your main focus keyphrase to rank for more keywords with the same piece of content. You will not be able to include multiple keyphrases in your meta description, intro, or post title for most cases, but you can include those in your content to rank for it.
Moving Forward To Use Focus Keyphrase in Your WordPress Website
There are many people that missed the step of keyword research when it comes to on-page SEO. They tend to set the focus keyphrase based on their own preference without any data backing.
To implement the strategies shared, you just need to install the SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or All In One SEO plugin and start.
Do share with us if you think this is useful or benefit from this.
