Focus Keywords
The First Step: Choosing a Focus Keyword
Decide on a Focus keyword. The function of the focus keyword is to provide information about a specific topic within your niche. The focus keyword or keyphrase is the search term that you want a page or post to rank for most. When people search for that phrase, they should find you.
Choosing a perfect focus keyword or keyphrase is not difficult. You should aim for a combination of words that are actually used by a search audience. Aim for a keyphrase that is relatively high in volume and one that will suit your audience.
Important SEO Issues Regarding Focus Keywords
- Add Focus Keyword to the SEO title. Use it closer to the beginning of the title.
- Add Focus Keyword to your SEO Meta Description.
- Use Focus Keyword in the URL.
- Use Focus Keyword at the beginning of your content (preferably within the first 10% of your content).
- Use Focus Keyword multiple times in the content.
- Use Focus Keyword in subheading(s) like H2, H3, H4, etc.
- Density of Focus Keyword and it's combinations must be reasonably high within the content. About 1% is considered ideal.
Next, we will look at Article/Blog Titles.
Join the Discussion
Teboho9
Premium
Hi Aparna,
Thanks for all of this tutorial.
I need to understand on the issue of Date in a URL. On WordPress, you can choose whether the month and year of publication of your article appears. I chose to have that on my initial / main website. But for my new / "extracurricular" website, I left that option out (so far). So the format of the URLs for the two websites looks thus:
https://mainwebsite.com/2020/11/hi-aparna/
https://newwebsite.com/hi-aparna/
By "Avoid using a date or year", do you mean that the URLs / permalinks of my main website are not good for SEO?
Regards
Thanks for all of this tutorial.
I need to understand on the issue of Date in a URL. On WordPress, you can choose whether the month and year of publication of your article appears. I chose to have that on my initial / main website. But for my new / "extracurricular" website, I left that option out (so far). So the format of the URLs for the two websites looks thus:
https://mainwebsite.com/2020/11/hi-aparna/
https://newwebsite.com/hi-aparna/
By "Avoid using a date or year", do you mean that the URLs / permalinks of my main website are not good for SEO?
Regards
Reply
Aparna155
Premium
Hi,
The reason why it is suggested that the year of publishing be avoided in the Permalink or URL is that when the year changes you may want to change the permalink, and that is not advisable. It's a Permanent Link for the reason that it should not change. That's how search engines expect it to be.
Suppose I write a review of Wealthy Affiliate in 2020 and name it "The best Wealthy Affiliate review, 2020". The permalink, which gets generated automatically, will be https:// mydomain/the-best-wealthy-affiliate-review-2020.
Now in 2021, this review will seem old, or not current, and therefore I may like to change the Title to "The best Wealthy Affiliate Review, 2021". But if I make a change to the Permalink as well, the article may get deindexed or may lose ratings, as Google treats it as a new article. It further gets complicated as Google now believes that the earlier article was the canonical. And there is a risk of your same article being branded an exact "Duplicate copy".
Therefore in any article which I write, I should always remove the year from the Permalink, even though I may let it remain in the Title, for reasons that I want my article to stay current in the current year (which in fact it might be).
I hope I have been able to answer your question?
Regards,
Aparna
The reason why it is suggested that the year of publishing be avoided in the Permalink or URL is that when the year changes you may want to change the permalink, and that is not advisable. It's a Permanent Link for the reason that it should not change. That's how search engines expect it to be.
Suppose I write a review of Wealthy Affiliate in 2020 and name it "The best Wealthy Affiliate review, 2020". The permalink, which gets generated automatically, will be https:// mydomain/the-best-wealthy-affiliate-review-2020.
Now in 2021, this review will seem old, or not current, and therefore I may like to change the Title to "The best Wealthy Affiliate Review, 2021". But if I make a change to the Permalink as well, the article may get deindexed or may lose ratings, as Google treats it as a new article. It further gets complicated as Google now believes that the earlier article was the canonical. And there is a risk of your same article being branded an exact "Duplicate copy".
Therefore in any article which I write, I should always remove the year from the Permalink, even though I may let it remain in the Title, for reasons that I want my article to stay current in the current year (which in fact it might be).
I hope I have been able to answer your question?
Regards,
Aparna
Teboho9
Premium
hallo,
I understand your explanation; thanks!
But I guess the example of my website that I have given, is different in that the year and month are automatically inserted into every URL by WordPress, because of the Setting I have selected. So they appear even if I have not written the year in the title. (Another Setting we can choose, is to have Year, Month and Date inserted.)
I am just wondering if that URL format is not favoured by the search engines.
Hoping I am clear,
Teboho ☺️
I understand your explanation; thanks!
But I guess the example of my website that I have given, is different in that the year and month are automatically inserted into every URL by WordPress, because of the Setting I have selected. So they appear even if I have not written the year in the title. (Another Setting we can choose, is to have Year, Month and Date inserted.)
I am just wondering if that URL format is not favoured by the search engines.
Hoping I am clear,
Teboho ☺️
Aparna155
Premium
Settings in WordPress can be changed Teboho.
The point is that for a particular niche or subject, I may want my articles (and permalinks) to be relevant to the present year.
In other niches, that may not be the case.
So you have to decide whether your niche (and article titles and permalinks) are benefitted by a date or not.
Regards,
Aps
The point is that for a particular niche or subject, I may want my articles (and permalinks) to be relevant to the present year.
In other niches, that may not be the case.
So you have to decide whether your niche (and article titles and permalinks) are benefitted by a date or not.
Regards,
Aps
Parameter
Premium
Thank you for this Aparna, I really love your emphasis on permalink, especially on the fact that it is not meant to change during the life time of the article.
I have made this mistake in time past, before knowing that I was doing myself more harm than good
Good job
Ayodeji
I have made this mistake in time past, before knowing that I was doing myself more harm than good
Good job
Ayodeji
Teboho9
Premium
hi to you and Aparna,
In early days, I have also changed titles and therefore permalinks of a few articles. But I did that within 2-3 days, when the articles didn't rank. Unfortunately a few of them have ended up not being indexed and are labelled as "Duplicate Content" in GSC.
Should I change the titles and permalinks back to the original?
In early days, I have also changed titles and therefore permalinks of a few articles. But I did that within 2-3 days, when the articles didn't rank. Unfortunately a few of them have ended up not being indexed and are labelled as "Duplicate Content" in GSC.
Should I change the titles and permalinks back to the original?
LeonEdwards2
Premium
Thank you for this training Aparna.
I visualised this as a pdf/ebook.
I visualised this as a pdf/ebook.
