Why focus keywords are important for SEO

One of the first steps we take in the optimization of our web page copy is determining our focus keywords. These focus keywords are important for SEO because they relate to the search terms we enter into search engines to find websites that feature content closely related to the topic we’re interested in.

Determining the focus keyword of a web page allows us to optimize for organic search intent, while strengthening our copywriting and marketing efforts. In this article, I review the focus keyword of one of my own web pages, share my thought process behind updating it, and discuss why focus keywords are important for SEO!

Why we use focus keywords and what they are

A focus keyword is applied to a singular web page or post for the following reasons:

1. Optimizing on-page content and copy to use the focus keyword strategically
2. Using the focus keyword in meta tags for search engine result pages (SERP)
3. Letting search engines know what topics/terms you want to rank for
4. Guiding tools like SEO plugins to offer targeted recommendations

Before any copywriting can be done, keywords pertaining to your topic must be determined, so you know what to write and how to write it.

If you haven’t done keyword research before or it’s been a while since you reviewed your focus keywords, it’s worth revisiting to see if there is room for improvement. 

“A focus keyword is the word or phrase you want your content to rank highly for when people search in Google.” – MonsterInsights 

MonsterInsights also recommends choosing the right focus keyword for your content, by focusing on three main factors:

1. Popularity (how many people search for it), 
2. Rankability (how difficult it is to rank for it), and 
3. Relevance (how closely it matches the content of your page).

Using keyword research tools

There are many keyword research tools out there for you to use, both paid or free. Here is a list of some popular ones:

• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Semrush Keyword Rank Checker
• Google Keyword Planner
• AnswerThePublic
• Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
• Backlinko Keyword Research Tool

Each website has beginner-friendly learning resources to determine where to begin your keyword research. Try starting with these:

• Keyword Research Guide by Ahrefs (30 min read)
• Keyword Research for SEO by Semrush (19 min read)

(If you have interest beyond keyword research, I also have a broader article of my own; SEO for beginners: 7 websites to get you started.)

Where do we use focus keywords

Taking a look back at recommendations from a SEO plugin, we see a theme of when and where to apply our focus keywords:

Is the focus keyword included in the URL?

In WordPress, when you create a new post or page the URL will be inherited from the title you use. If you call a page “About Me”, the URL will become: “yourdomain.com/about-me/” by default.

“About Me” is not a great focus keyword. For that reason, I named my about page “Meet Bree Emmerson” and the URL is “be3designs.ca/meet-bree-emmerson/“, (I could have also gone with “About Bree Emmerson”).

This way, when my name is searched online, my website’s about page is the first one to appear in the SERP.

Is the focus keyword included in the meta title and description?

The meta title and description don’t appear in your on-page content but rather are used in your web page’s source code. Browsers, devices, and SERP all index this data to display the information in places like:

• The bookmark title in your browser
• The tab of your browser
• The title of a shortcut or application
• The title and description that display in a search result

They’re brief snippets that describe to robots and humans alike what your page is about and why it should be important to them to view or link to.

Is the focus keyword included in the page title/H1 tag?

We use heading tags to denote our page structure visually and for accessibility purposes. Usually only (1) H1 tag is used, as the first element on the page, acting as the page or post title.

Using your focus keyword here is important because it’s the actual topic of your page. 

Instead of naming your page, “Our Services”, you could use “<Your Industry/Niche/Category> Services” to gain a keyword placement. For example, I use “Website Services” instead of just “Services”.

Is the focus keyword included in the first or second paragraph of the copy, a secondary heading tag, and in an image alt tag?

Keep using the focus keyword throughout your article so long as it makes sense to. You don’t want to sound like you’re stuffing it in as many times as possible, or ruining its readability. 

Remember: The (human) reader comes first.

💡 Tip: Check out this resource from Google about creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.

Analyzing the focus keyword of a web page

I’ll use my blog archive as an example of an existing page on my website that I put minimum SEO effort into prior to my relaunch this year.

Not to be confused with the customized landing page I created for my blog called Website Resources, the Blog Archive is actually the default archive/blog index page that lists all posts in my blog.

If this is your first time reviewing and auditing your website, select a page with enough on-page content that you can easily and quickly edit or customize for small text changes.

Typically, the more content that there is on the page the better or more you have to work with, although that content should be focused, optimized, and have good readability.

Remember, we’re trying to narrow the focus of a page to a singular topic or interest – the intent of the would-be search engine user who navigates to your site.

My original focus keyword

Using my real-life example, the original focus keyword I very much tossed in was: “blog archive”. 

Yep.

Lets get some organic search traffic from all the people out there who use as broad a search term as literally “<any> blog archive”… 🙄 </sarcasm>

(Honestly, I wasn’t worried about optimizing this page because I had created an entirely different landing page for my blog.)

Why I chose my original focus keyword

Funnily enough, what is evident is that even when I’m not actually optimizing a page – I still follow the steps as if I am:

I created the focus keyword and meta data based on the fact that the term “blog archive” appeared on the page in its URL, H1 title, and existing content.

I followed the SEO advice, the issue is that “blog archive” isn’t a great focus keyword because nobody is searching for it.

Even if they were, chances are that they would include a topic to define their search term. 

I should have gone through the process of researching, selecting a focus keyword, optimizing the on-page content, meta title and description like I did most other pages on my website. 

But here is the original SEO score before I made any concerted efforts:

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Original SEO Score: 50/100 🟡
Original Focus Keyword: blog archive
Original Meta Title: “Blog Archive at BE3Designs”
Original Meta Description: “View the blog archive at BE3Designs to read articles about search engine optimization, marketing, and working with WordPress!”
Original H1 Title: “Blog Archive“
Original First Paragraph: “The blog archive below lists all articles published on this website. Return to the main resources page to view by category or sign up for my newsletter to be updated on new posts worth reading.”

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The amount of times we see the term “blog archive” appear in all of that data, is about how often we want to see our focus keyword initially, before having it come up again later on the page.

Selecting a new focus keyword

While reviewing my blog archive page and mulling over what I could possibly do with it, I glanced at its meta description and found my light bulb moment there:

Original Meta Description: “View the blog archive at BE3Designs to read articles about search engine optimization, marketing, and working with WordPress!”

Being ever so helpful, past-Bree’s off-the-cuff meta description outlining what type of content was featured in this blog archive reminded now-Bree of WHY I write my posts in the first place – it’s all in effort to help other website owners.

When it comes to self-discovery we always hear about “finding your why”, what we’re doing here is discovering and applying the why of each page and post on your website. Why does a page exist? What is its purpose? We try to focus on that.

My thought process for selecting a new focus keyword:

My clients are typically small-medium business owners, sole-proprietors, non-profits, or graphic designers. These are the groups of people I’d like to find my website and engage with.

Each of these targeted groups are also focus keywords on their own, but I can’t optimize an entire page well for all of them. Instead, I’ll find a way to use these keywords on new or existing posts and optimize this blog archive page with an alternative focus:

I selected a commonality between all of these types of clients – website owners. Follow my thought process:

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New focus keyword: articles for website owners
💭 I didn’t use “posts” and instead used “articles” because the competition in SERP was mostly how-tos on writing blog posts. I don’t want to compete with that as it isn’t my focus in this situation.

New Meta Title: “Articles for website owners: Blog archive at BE3Designs”
💭 I wanted to push my focus keyword up but also appropriately hint at what type of content a user would be clicking into or viewing.

New Meta Description: “Read articles for website owners about subjects like SEO, accessibility, and working with WordPress in my BE3Designs’ blog archive!”
💭 I included the focus keyword.
💭 I changed ‘search engine optimization’ to ‘SEO’ because by this point I believe most people looking for advice on SEO are aware of its acronym. If not, search engines typically know they’re synonymic. This also gives me more characters to work with.
💭 I replaced the term ‘marketing’ because I am not as excited to talk about that right now as I am about ‘accessibility’. This better targets the audience I favor.
💭 I added the term ‘my’ in my ongoing effort to write and market as myself. I am a sole proprietor, it is me, for I am I, so why not say so? Y’know.

New H1 Title: “Articles for Website Owners“
New First Paragraph: “The blog archive below lists all articles for website owners published on my website. Return to the main resources page to view by category or sign up for my newsletter to be updated on new posts.”
💭 I included the focus keyword, it’s basically a fancier version of “Blog Archive” while giving an idea of the general topic.

New SEO Score: 70/100 🟠
💭 I am a-ok with this because I am only getting docked points for:

• Not changing the URL of the page from /blog/ to contain the much longer keyphrase – maybe I’ll change my mind in the future but for now, no.
• There is no image on the page that maintains the focus keyword as alt text – and that’s okay too. Because I don’t want to change the layout of my page to include an image element alongside the post feed.
• The title doesn’t contain a positive or negative sentiment word, nor a power word, and I am okay with that because I still want to balance my optimization efforts with my voice and how I write.

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While this was a very specific example based on my own initial laziness, you could use a similar process while reviewing the focus of each of your posts or web pages.

1. Review if the focus keyword is serving you well 
2. Decide if your original focus keyword is worth keeping and how you could improve upon it, or,
3. Determine a new focus keyword and amend your on-page content and meta data accordingly.

Focus keywords are important for SEO, improve yours

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