WHAT ARE FOCUS KEYWORDS IN SEO AND HOW DO YOU USE THEM?

While tackling SEO can seem overwhelming, there are a number of actionable things you can do to get your website to rank higher on Google. One of the easiest and most helpful ways to increase search engine optimization is by utilizing focus keywords. If you can learn how to identify focus keywords, this will then help you to set up your website’s pages for SEO and fill out your meta information strategically. Learn what focus keywords are in the SEO world and how to use them on your website.

(Still a little unclear on what SEO is? Read “What is SEO and Why Does it Matter?”)

Utilizing focus keywords is very important to do on your website. In the SEO world, a “keyword” is essentially what someone types into Google to find your website. To get your website’s pages to come up when someone searches a keyword relevant to your business, each page on your site should have a unique focus keyword. By having a term in mind for each page, you can much more easily get different pages to rank highly on Google. By not lumping all your services together on one page with the same keyword, each individual page is much more likely to come up depending on whatever keyword you are using.  

While SEO keyword techniques are similar for every business, the keywords (or search terms) you use will be different based on what you do. For example, if you run a dry cleaning service, you definitely want to come up on Google if someone near you searches for a dry cleaner. You may also want to come up if someone Googles “alterations near me,” or “steam cleaning,” or other services you provide, so choose focused keywords you want to come up on Google for.

After you have chosen your focus keyword, it is now important to know how to utilize that keyword on your web pages. First, each page should have a minimum of 300 words, and up to 1,000 words. Share information you can think of that someone googling your focus keyword would want to know. You want to use your target keyword on each page about once every 100 words. Make sure you are writing relevant content though and not just trying to reach the maximum word count. Boxwood’s SEO copywriting blog post gives step-by-step instructions for effective SEO copywriting. 

Headers are another important way to use your keyword in your page’s layout. Use headers on your page to break up each different topic and include keywords in your page’s title, and in some of your headers, too. If you use your headers well, someone should be able to skim around your website, just read the headers, and still get a good idea of what you do. Set up your pages correctly while implementing your keywords to improve SEO.

Meta information is another essential task you need to work on when optimizing each web page. You should always fill out the meta information for SEO. Sometimes the meta information can be hard to find depending on what website you have, but you should always be able to manually enter a meta title and meta description whether in a builder or directly into the code. This title and description are what people see on that Google search results page before they click on your website. You want your meta information to include your target keyword but also compel people to check out your website. The meta description is another chance to share a little more information while ranking your page higher on Google. Make it compelling and something people would want to click on while including your keyword!

These tips on how to optimize your website using focus keywords will help boost your search engine result rankings. Using a keyword strategy, setting up your page correctly while including your keywords, and filling out your meta information can greatly impact your search volume in Google. Using these simple yet important strategies will help you rank more highly on Google.