Focus Keyword

This is a "Quick Tips" post.

So, what is a quick way to determine what focus keyword or phrase would be best for you to try ranking organically for? You do not want to, typically, rank for something that has low search volume for your targeted geographic area and not extremely relevant to your endeavor. Yet, this is what most people do and spend a lot of time at it as well. Why not be sure the keyword or phrase you are wanting to try to rank for is worthy first? This will give you some quick guidance.

Pick a great focus keyword for your existing or new pages and posts for SEO. Click To Tweet

#1 First, use the https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/ plugin (this is the guide). The plugin is here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/. Your goal will be do get the Yoast green light to appear (the first tab of the plugin on the page or post titled "General" will typically do it for you. However, if they page or post is particularly important to you, you may want to green light for all the points under the second tab "Page Analysis" too (along with the "Advanced" and "Social" tabs if you want as well).

#2 Second, go here to see what short tale or long tail keywords search engines "think" your page or post is about (or appears the most):
http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/keyword-density/.

#3  Third, are you familiar with Google Adwords? If not, login to your gmail account (or create a new gmail account). Type in google adwords in search. Go to it. Then, click on Tools a the top and Keyword planner. Click "Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category".  Search "adwords keyword planner" or click here: https://goo.gl/LYgFq7  to get to it.

Put in your exact url to the page or post in question as landing page (you can choose a category too for more precision). Put your current keyword in you have under products and services in the box. The goal here is to actually find out exactly what google thinks your page or post is actually about now AND get more keyword ideas, search volume, potential competition levels etc. 

Select your targeted geographic area.

Select your language you are targeting or multiple.

Now, google will show you keyword groups & also there is a tab to just go to "Keywords" only. Go to keywords only. Then sort the search volume by most to least. There you go. You may find a MUCH better keyword or phrase you want to go after and makes better sense then the random keyword or phrase you previously chose out of thin air (without researching it).

You will be able to see the volume of searches based on your criteria you entered for your current keyword and other keyword ideas. If others have much higher search volume, more relevance to your page, and or possible lower competition or higher competition (whatever you want to try to rank better for) and you want to go for based on actual real data (vs. just guessing like most people do) then make the adjustment and go green for it in the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin for your particular page or post.

Just FYI, it is a easier to rank for longer keywords/phrases that are relevant to your page. Of course, you want to be sure people are actually searching for your keyword in a decent volume in your target area (global, national, or even down to city or county etc). That is where Google Adwords tools can help. The search is for Google search network only but is a good proxy for what people are doing.

There are other tools out there but we will use the Adwords keyword tool for now. So you can find highly searched volume keywords that are highly relevant to you page or post. Also, you will see high, med, and low competition. It will be easier to rank higher for lower competition keywords than higher but as your site improves TRUST, then you can rank well for higher competition ones too. If you find a keyword that has better volume and relevance with the below tool, then change your WordPress Yoast SEO "focus keyword"to that instead and then go for a SEO green light with that new keyword instead. You will need to make adjustments for the new "focus keyword" in your page or post title, url, meta description, etc.

Note: this is just a great thing for you to do for your pages and posts. But, there are a ton more of both ON-page and OFF-page SEO items you can do to rank better so Google and other search engines TRUST your site more and more over time. See another ON-page and OFF-page SEO "Quick Tips" post here to check that out.

Have fun with it!

***3rd Party Websites Hint: You can use this similar approach for ranking your http://youtube.com videos or other Web 3.0 or third-party sites.

Pick a great focus keyword for your existing or new pages and posts for SEO. Click To Tweet

By the way, we can help you directly with your focus keyword for individual WordPress pages or posts after you have researched what focus keyword you want. Each page or post would be equal to a job request with us. So, hit us up if you want help with that and much more support all things WordPress!