What Is A Focus Keyword?

Source: Seobility

Date First Published: 31st December 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 5/10

CONTENTS

Tips For Choosing A Focus Keyword
Does Every Page Have To Have A Focus Keyword?

Learn more about what a focus keyword is in this article.

A focus keyword is a keyword that website owners want a page to rank for the most. As suggested in the name, focus keywords are the main keywords that a page is optimised for and when people perform a search with those keywords, they should find that page. In order to drive more organic traffic, the focus keyword should be chosen based on proper keyword research. For example, the focus keyword for a page with the title 'Keyword research tools' would be 'keyword research tools' as that is the main keyword of the page. The other keywords that appear further down the page would not be focus keywords.

Tips For Choosing A Focus Keyword

Always use the most relevant keyword to each piece of content as the focus keyword. That could be the title.
Ensure that the focus keyword is relevant to each piece of content. Choosing irrelevant keywords will result in a poor user experience and could also have a negative impact on SEO.
Include the focus keyword in specific parts of a webpage, including the page title, meta description, subheadings, the first paragraph, and in image alt attributes.
After finding focus keywords, it is useful to determine their keyword difficulty and search volume. If competition for a focus keyword is very high, it will be much harder to rank high for it and it is recommended to find other focus keywords. If the search volume is too low, it indicates that the keyword is of low popularity and the focus keyword would not direct much organic traffic because there wouldn't be enough people searching for it.
Do not overuse the focus keyword within the page as this is a form of keyword stuffing and can lead to Google penalties.

Does Every Page Have To Have A Focus Keyword?

No, not every page has to have a focus keyword. Pages, like the "about" page and contact page often do not have a focus keyword. These pages should be easily reachable. For example, the contact page might rank for '(company name) address', but it doesn't make any sense as a focus keyword, so it is okay to not have a focus keyword for these types of pages. Also, some posts, such as temporary announcements do not need a focus keyword as they do not need to rank in the long term and will be removed after a certain period of time, so it is not worth optimising those types of posts.