The question about “How many SEO keywords per page you should focus on?” keeps popping up, so I decided to write a blog post to answer it.
And if you wonder things like:
What should my focus keyword be? What is a focus Keyword in WordPress? How do I find a focus keyword? How many SEO keywords per page should you target? Should you stick to a certain keyword density?
Then this is the right blog post for you.
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), one of the most important things you can do is choose the appropriate focus keyphrase. This is a phrase that you will target with your blog post and marketing efforts to rank higher on search engine results pages such as Google.
In this article, we will explain what a focus keyphrase is, how you can find the right one for your business, and also tell you how what steps you need to rank your page on Google.
What is a Focus Keyphrase?
A focus keyphrase or a focus keyword is a phrase that you target with your SEO efforts to rank your page. This can be done through optimizing your website content and blog post around this phrase. A Focus keyword is for example “women’s running shoes.”
You can also use pay-per-click advertising and other marketing efforts to optimize and target this focus keyword for search intent. The goal is to rank higher on search engine results pages when people search for this phrase.
Why Is Choosing The Right Focus Keyphrase Important?
Choosing the right Focus keyword is important because it can help you attract more visitors to your website and helps to rank your page.
If you pick a popular focus keyword that people are searching for, you’ll have a better chance of appearing in the search results and a by far better chance to rank higher in the Google Search Results.
However, if you select a keyphrase that’s too popular, you for sure have difficulty ranking high on the results page. If you choose a focus keyword like “Web Design” for example like one of my customers from Chile recently did, you will surely have countless problems to get within the first three Google Search Results pages. This keyword is linked to several ten thousand websites already.
On the other hand, if you decide to select a particular keyphrase that’s not popular enough, you may not get much traffic from it either. Every week we have customers who are totally surprised that they do not appear in Google – their selected focus keyword has more than often a search volume of 10 searches per month, worldwide.
How Many Keywords for SEO Can a Page Rank for?
A single page may rank for hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords. The number of keywords for which a page ranks is determined by how effectively it is optimized for SEO as well as the overall search volume for the associated searches.
“It seems that the typical #1 ranking page will also rank in the top 10 [search results] for roughly 1,000 additional related keywords (while the median value is more than two times less — about 400 keywords),” according to Ahrefs. Furthermore, lower ranked sites tend to rank for fewer keywords.”
This happens because a single page might rank for hundreds to thousands of related keywords, known as “long-tail” keywords.
Long-tail keywords are just extended versions of the primary keyword. A website that ranks for “best SEO keyword tool,” for example, may also rank for “best SEO keyword tool for bloggers” or “best SEO keyword tool for small enterprises,” and so on. It all relies on how the content was written and how well the website is optimized for other relevant keywords.
How To Choose The Right Focus Keyword For Search Engines
When choosing a focus keyword or related keyphrases, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, think about what your target audience is searching for. What terms or phrases would they use to find your website?
Second, consider how competitive the focus keyword is.
As we have seen, if it’s too popular, you may have difficulty ranking for it. Third, make sure the focus keyword is relevant to your website and placed within a high-quality content. If it’s not, you may get traffic from it, but it won’t be targeted traffic that’s interested in what you have to offer.
RankMath WordPress SEO Plugin And Focus Keywords
First of all you should make use of a WordPress SEO Plugin. The most common ones at the time of writing are Yoast and RankMath.
RankMath is one of the most popular SEO tools on the market, it exists for a couple of years and has several thousands of loyal fans worldwide. RankMath SEO plugin does have a free version for your WordPress website, which in most cases is more than sufficient.
If you’re using the RankMath plugin, you can enter your focus keyphrase in the “Focus Keyword” field. It will then analyze your content and meta description to see if you’re using the Focus keyphrase enough and in the right way within your header and content.
While there is no magic number of times to use a focus keyphrase, you can use multiple focus keywords in your WordPress site if it suits you. RankMath does give you a “content score” based on keyword difficulty and how well you’ve used the keyphrases.
A green score means you’re using the focus keywords well, while a red score means you need to work on it.
If you see a red score, don’t panic! Just try to work the target keyword into your content in a natural way. RankMath also offers some helpful tips on how to improve your content score. You can also do free courses to better understand how to use RankMath and use focus keyphrase input field or just read our other blog post where we describe in details how you find inspiration for the perfect focus keyword.
What Happens When You Don’t Choose The Right Focus Keyphrase
If you don’t choose the right focus keyphrase, you may not get the traffic you want from your website. You could end up with a lot of unqualified traffic or search volume that doesn’t convert into customers or clients.
Additionally, if your primary focus keyword or chosen keyword is too popular, you may have difficulty ranking for it in search engines. This could result in less traffic overall.
For example, Landscaping Colorado is a website focused on helping people find landscaping services in Colorado. Its main focus keyword is simply “landscaping Colorado.”
When looking at a keyword this way, it’s easy to see how difficult it will be to rank for that term. Just look at the competition level! Unless Landscaping Colorado had a huge amount of traffic already, they wouldn’t be able to rank for “landscaping Colorado” easily.
Instead, they chose to focus on a keyword group like “landscaping services Colorado.” This group of keywords is easier to rank for and attracts customers tracking down help with landscaping in Colorado.
By focusing on a narrower keyword group, your website can rank for more terms with less competition. You’ll get more traffic from search engines, and that traffic will often convert into customers or clients for your business.
Keyword Research
What should I use to check my focus keyword usage? You can for sure make use of Keyword Research Tools like Keywords Everywhere or portals like UberSuggest or Answerthepublic. Companies like SemRush or Ahrefs do offer limited functionality without the need to pay hundreds of dollars each month for a subscription. Other companies and especially consultants can analyze your business online to get a better idea. Many of them do offer very detailed Keyword Researches for your niche.
If you spent thousands of dollars to advertise your products and services but no one found your website, you could waste the time and effort. This data will give you a good idea of how to improve your search engine optimization efforts. It can really help if a company can no longer deliver the results they desire. The company should also conduct an online SEO analysis for their web pages to ensure they are using the best keywords and increase visitors.
I recently had a client from Sweden who spent 8000 dollars for a website which had wonderful photos, a really nice design but almost no text at all. Result? No one found their website. They simply did not think in investigating some important keywords to get some organic traffic to their website. The best design is absolutely worthless if the most significant Search Engine – a Text Crawler – cannot find it.
Keywords in Blogs
Occasionally it is simply too difficult to put your focus keyword into a webpage. Especially ECommerce Shops – for example built with Shopify – do struggle with this issue.
But here is the solution: Create an e-commerce blog. Blogs have many benefits such as increased traffic and boosted traffic. Very successful companies exist who came to the top 5 Google Results almost only because of their blog.
Target multiple keywords, describe yourself, your products and services, and your people. Include these keywords in a post to increase your website search volume. You can also post your blogs to your social networking site and offer information which others can’t find. It can also make people interested.
What To Keep In Mind While Choosing Your Focus Keyphrase
When you’re choosing your primary focus keyword, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
The primary keyphrase and related keyphrase should be relevant to your website using generic term and should be in the seo title.
The focus keyphrases along with additional keywords should be something that you can realistically rank for in search terms for seo purposes.
The focus keyphrase should be something that is searched for frequently, but not too frequently.
The keyphrase length should be optimized and post to rank on WordPress but be specific enough that it targets a certain audience.
The focus keywords needs to placed in personal and meaningful conversation style to improve search rankings using on page seo. Semrush account is perfect if you want to seat a focus keywords or related keyphrases for your wordpress website.
Conclusion
To sum it up, a focus keyphrase or keywords is an important part of your SEO strategy and search term. By taking the time to do proper keyword research and choose the right one, you can increase your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages. So the answer to the initial question “How many SEO Keywords should you use” is to target one specific keyword with 2 to 3 related keyword variations.
Markus Schad | Senior SEO Strategist
Markus Schad is Senior SEO Consultant with over 8 years experience in getting more traffic and visitors for his customers. He is the founder of Commander-SEO.com.
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