If you have a website, there’s a high chance it’s built on WordPress because WordPress runs over +43% of the entire internet. And if you do, your choice for dealing with SEO issues and improvements has probably landed on Yoast SEO Plugin.
If you haven’t seen it in action, it’s a WordPress plugin that, once activated, brings in a new area below each of your post/page where you’re able to add some important SEO elements like SEO title, focus keyword, and meta description.
What most bloggers and WordPress users still don’t get is how the focus keyword (or focus keyphrase) works and is related to their SEO.
Let me provide you with crystal clear answers to your questions about the focus keyword field so you can use it at its full potential.
The problem here is that many WordPress users use on a regular basis Yoast SEO plugin, but few really know how the focus keyword works.
What’s The Focus Keyword in Yoast SEO Plugin?
Have you ever noticed that when you start typing anything in Google search box, you immediately get words and suggestions based on your search? Those are the most common searches users performed on Google.
From an SEO perspective, those are useful insights you could use when developing editorial ideas and listing keywords to rank for. They could be the starting point of your keyword strategy.
Whether they’re generic vs specific or short vs long-tail keywords (also known as key phrases), you need to keep them in mind when creating content because you should use them in your pages and blog posts.
If you aim at ranking “content marketing tips”, for example, you’ll need to create a bunch of pages, blog posts, infographics, and other content pieces with those words in a natural flow.
Yoast SEO plugin’s focus keyword helps you with that: the focus keyword — or focus keyphrase —keeps you “focused” on a target keyword or keyphrase you’d like to rank for. It helps you keep track of the occurrences of that exact expression on the blog post or page you’re currently working on.
What’s The Goal Of A Focus Keyword?
The focus keyword is nothing else than a writing tool you can use to improve your writing while creating a page or a blog post in WordPress. Although I was sure about this, I asked: “Hey why not ask directly to Yoast team, just to be super-duper sure about it?” So I did and Michiel, who’s in charge of site reviews at Yoast’s, confirmed it all:
@matteoduo yes.
— Michiel Heijmans (@michielheijmans) March 3, 2015
How Does The Focus Keyword Affect Your SEO?
This is one of the biggest misunderstanding WordPress users and SEOs have: the focus keyword in Yoast SEO plugin doesn’t affect SEO at all, nor it modifies the code on your entire website.
The SEO title field and the meta description do, as you can see in the image below showing the meta description for my guide on image optimization best practices:
Again, I asked Yoast team and got it confirmed:
@matteoduo It doesn’t; it helps you optimize the page for that keyword without having any SEO influence itself ;-) /cc @yoast — Michiel Heijmans (@michielheijmans) March 3, 2015
How Many Focus Keywords Can You Use?
If you’re using the free version of Yoast SEO, you can add one focus keyword. If you’re using their premium version, you’ll have the possibility to add synonyms and related keywords.
Things don’t change, though: since the focus keyword is a way to support your writing process, the focus keyword should always be one for you’re writing copy to rank for a specific keyword not a bunch of them.
Do All My Pages And Posts Need A Focus Keyword?
No, you aren’t asked to find a focus keyword for each of your pages and blog posts because the sole purpose of it is to help you in staying focused on your writing, aligning the wording, copy and information with the keyword you’re aiming for. In Yoast’s words:
The answer is easy: not every page needs a focus keyword. Your contact page should be easily reachable, it might for instance need to rank for “ address”. That probably doesn’t make sense as a focus keyword though and it’s perfectly fine to leave it empty.
Focus Keywords vs Meta keywords
Focus keywords aren’t to be confused with meta keywords, those words and phrases SEO “gurus” used to insert in a website to trick search engines back in the days. Those should have been an additional way for webmasters to provide search engines with even more descriptive information about their site, thus rank better.
But guess what, webmasters started filling up their website with “free mp3”, “free porn videos” or other huge online searches and results where crap. Today Google and other search engines don’t evaluate them anymore.
By default, Yoast SEO doesn’t allow meta keywords (for this very good reason), still some users want the possibility to use them within their SEO strategy. If you’d like to waste some of your time and stuff your WordPress site with meta keywords, you can still enable them.
How To Use The Focus Keyword Field
As I said before, the sole purpose of the focus keyword is to make your writing process, wording, and writing depth align with a target keyword you’d like to rank for. With this in mind, don’t over-use it within your copy, nor force sentences containing your focus keyword if that’s not the case. Write like you speak, in plain English, following a natural flow, using everyday words.
Of course, you should take into consideration the keyword density aspect, which is the number your very keyword has been used on your page. Yoast’s plugin shows this number and you can take action accordingly.
Wrapping Up
As content marketing is stronger than ever, SEO is gaining attention too. But be warned: search engines are smarter nowadays and creating a list of generic keywords you would like to rank for is like flushing your time and money down the toilet. Yoast SEO is a great plugin that can help you improve your SEO efforts because it has all the main elements a page or blog post needs to have.
Picking the perfect focus keyword isn’t easy and now that you know what’s all about, it’s your turn to use it effectively in your next post!
Matteo, we rely on the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast for every post that we share. Thanks for breaking down keyword focus into simple terms.
Thanks Brandon, I’m glad I helped you guys :)
I wrote a new blog post and my SEO Yoast plugin says I got the “Focus Keyword” already on another blog post but I have no idea if this would affect my overall rankings if I keep it this way. This helped though so I appreciate the advice.
Glad it helped you Randy.
Helpful article. I have used these information while writing my new post and it worked.
I use Yoast and I love it. I do have one issue and I can’t quite figure it out. For some reason when I pick a focus keyword, it takes forever to load? I’ll select it from the search box drop down, and the word appears, but just sits there and thinks. We’re not talking a minute or two either, more like 10. If I try to do an SEO check, it comes back with a message that I must chose a focus keyword. Any idea what I’m doing wrong? I’ve sent out a few emails, searched the issue, checked my personal email, and typed this up and it’s still loading the keyword/thinking. I don’t want to post it without, but I don’t want to wait all day once a week either.
Hi Jordan,
never heard of this issue but I’d suggest to:
– check your internet connection (maybe it’s a single episode related to it)
– save your post as draft and type the desired focus keyword again, since the feature for checking the focus keyword in real time not always works as charm.
– if you’re still experiencing this issue, post a new thread on WordPress.org or contact via Twitter Yoast’s team.
Let me know :)
THANK YOU
I wrote a new blog post and my SEO Yoast plugin says I got the “Focus Keyword” already on another blog post but I have no idea if this would affect my overall rankings if I keep it this way, How would i fix it or do i need to look for another keyword to use in each post?
Hi Emmy,SEO Yoast plugin tells you when you’re using a focus keyword you previously used for another blog post because SEO used to “dictate” to target 1 keyword only for each page/post. My suggestion here is: don’t worry about it and spend time crafting good content. As I told in my blog post, the focus keyword doesn’t affect your SEO rankings at all. Think of it as writing tool that helps you staying focused on 1 concept but there’s no harm for your SEO if you use it on different pages.
Hiiiii, I am not much clear about Focused Keyword in WordPress SEO by yoast. Can we write long Keyword in Focused Keyword section of WordPress seo by yoast.
Yes Rakesh you can write long keywords in focus keywords field.
But you need to optimize your post around well around that long keyword
Long keywords are less competitive and are a bit easy to rank for.
I have read whole article on focused Keyword in WordPress seo by yoast. Is there any helpful Article about this topic on your blog then plz suggest me.
Very helpful and informative. I’m still very new at all of this but with the help of yoast and wordpress forums / users I’m getting there. Keep up the good work. Thanks, Eric.
Thanks Eric :)
Hello..
Does it mean I have to make focus keyword first before creating my blog?
which part in yoast SEO then that affect the SEO in Google?
Thank you :)
Yes.. at first you have to find long tail keyword based on your article subject.
Nice write-up. I also use Yoast SEO for my website CheesecakeTech
I wanted to know if it hampers a blog/website if the owner uses more than 1 focus keyword?
Hey Nisharo,
thanks for commenting here.
Website speed is not influenced by the number of focus keywords you decide to use. In fact, as I wrote in the post, the focus keyword doesn’t affect your SEO in any way.
Since it’s only a tool to help users (like you) craft their copy and keep it “focused” around a specific topic, I don’t see how useful it would be to use more than one focus keyword when creating a page/blog post.
thanks it is imformative
yoast is ky favourite seo plugin.thanks for sharing detailed info.
You’re welcome :)
Well, I am working hard to improve my skills to find good keywords, because in a last month or so, I got to know, that keywords are the base of my blog, if I can’t find good ones, then there is no point blogging.
So, that’s why working hard on it now. although finding it difficult, but will succeed soon.
Good luck then :)
Matteo, thanks for this great article…I have been struggling with the focus keyword trying to understand its role etc and you clarified it but the question remains, since it is not that important for the SEO so only with their premium version you can have more than one focus keyword…that tells me it is important otherwise they allow it in the free version, your thoughts?
I’m not sure I quite understood your question, but I’ll try anyway :)
The focus keyword is an important tool, a writing tool not an SEO tool. This means it helps us stay focused on our writing but it doesn’t affect directly the SEO of any page.
Also, let’s not forget that not every page needs a focus keyword. As Yoast says:
Actually, I haven’t yet understood why we’d need to have more than one (as they enabled with their Premium version of their plugin), as I asked when they released it:
Multiple keywords with Yoast seem great but unfortunately it’s not free. There’s a yearly fee.
I needed this, love your post
Glad to hear that! Thanks for reading it ;)
Finally, I now know what Toast seemingly did not explain. Thank you Matteo for your time and giving!
Whoops, I meant to type “Yoast” not “Toast”
You’re welcome John, my pleasure. :)
This article made me so clear about focus keywords. You explained a lot about it. The important thing is you explained a purpose of using it. I was thinking of those keywords helps to have a good SEO value and you proved me wrong.
Thank you so much for writing this article and sharing to us.
Glad it helped you out Sulabh, thanks for stopping by :)
HELLO ALL, I”m using yoast seo plugin for my site, but can some one tell me a better alternative for it.. Or shall I should stick with yoast only..
Hey zipship,
thanks for stopping by. Well I’m kinda happy with Yoast but, if you’re not, what I can suggest you is to give All In One SEO a try [https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/].
Thank you so much for this great article. But i am confused in meta keywords and focus keywords. Aftrer putting focus keyword Meta keywords required to put? or only focus keyword required? Because the focus keyword can only be 1 then when we put secondary keyword?
Thank you in advance.
Thank you so much for your useful article. I am using Yoast SEO and I gave alternative Focus Keyword and followed the Yoast SEO instructions to turn on the Red or Orange bullets to Green of the pages and posts and it perfectly turns on to Green. Now my problem is, Google dose not optimize my site by searching through Focus Keywords of mine, but google optimize my site by search using my url “a1gm.tk” perfectly.
I am new to Yoast SEO. Can you tell me, I have any mistakes?
Your answers will be most helpful to me.
With this post, you completely changed my perception on focus keyword. I was under the perception that focus keyword help you to rank in the search rank.
Regards
Barnali
Question. My yoast plugin tells me “Good SEO scoreThe images on this page contain alt attributes with the focus keyword” if I take the dashes out of my image alt tag title name. If I leave the dashes in it says “The images on this page do not have alt attributes containing your focus keyword”. Is this a glitch or are dashes not required in the alt tag anymore? The alt tags and my focus keyword match.
very detailed and well explained article about Yoast SEO, but I am still confuse about the following topics in Yoast SEO, “Clean up the ” || “Add noodp meta robots tag sitewide” || “Redirect attachment URL’s to parent post URL”. These setting confuse me that what should i do for it and why so kindly explain these point’s of Yoast SEO.
How to optimize Robots.txt file for WordPress ?? Is sitemap included is robots.txt file is important for SEO or Indexing or not ? Simple example of SEO Optimize Robots.txt file ?
Hello Matt,
I was always curious about this focus keyword thing on yoast seo. Your article explains every detail I needed to know
Hi Matt,
Thanks for sharing this article. The problem that I am having with my website jaywordpressdesign(dot)com is that the focus keywords that I have used for the website (and have actually written the content for those specific keywords) do not show up at all on google Web master Tools. Although my website is just 2 weeks old, should I wait longer to see those focused keywords?
my website is related to deals and coupons. matt please tell me if i use focus keyword on every post then my post rank is hurt or not.
i use focus keyword like “amazon” if people search other keyword like “amazon coupon” my website is show or not in this list
Hi Matteo,
I recently joined a digitall marketing company and working as an SEO guy there, and since their customers job is very specific, their created content are usually very close to each other and when I use yoast plugin to optimize their content before publishing online, sometimes I have to use previously used focus keyword again, is this a problem and if it is how serious is it?
Thanks for writing this. I suspected that the Focus Keyword didn’t actually change anything. I think it is a great tool for what it is, but I also think Yoast’s presentation of the Focus Keyword is a little deceitful. They should say upfront that it is a writing tool.
Thanks again for the clarity.
Big thanks , i think keywords play a good role in seo .
Focus Keyword is matters in seo.
We rely heavily on YOAST seo plugin to stand out from others in search engines but did not know focus keyword dont really help a lot in real seo! Thank you for the information Matt!
Sorry but the focus keyword section in Yoast is really set up to make pages easily over optimized. Where most people get messed up is attempting to target multiple keywords in one meta description and title and try to rank for every single term perfectly. Anytime this happensm keyword stuffing is almost expected to go down. You’d save tons of time just attempting to rank for 1 maybe 2 terms that are closely related and optimize your page based off that.
I have used focus keyword in one of my website page and it yoast shows warning that your are linking to another page with the same keyword consider to change if your want to rank.and at the same time it shows you have never use this focus keyword before.
What does that mean?
The focus keyword i used i again used it in other page meta description and seo title only. is this the reason?
Focus keyword of one page is “iot” and other page focus keyword is “iot training” so is this the reason why i am getting such warning?
I need your help
Wow, thank you so much Matteo for this great post! I am new to all of this (just started to have my own blog) :) You are great! Thanks again :)
Thank you for your kind words Patricia and… good luck with your blog!
Good article. Okay so the “focus keyword” does not directly influence SEO as far as Google is concerned (or bing etc etc) – So why does Yoast push multiple focus words as a benefit of going Premium?
Hey Jake!
Well, the premium version has several features that the free version (here discussed and broadly adopted) lacks. Having the possibility to add in multiple focus keywords is one of them. Given that the Focus keyword doesn’t directly affect SEO, rather is more of a writing tool, having the possibility to add 1+ keywords might help those who need/wish to use semantically related keywords and require the “green dot”. I’m not one of these people.
If you read on Yoast, they also indirectly tell users it’s uncommon to have all “green dots” with multiple keywords:
To be honest, I don’t think that having multiple keywords is one of the major driving forces for users to go Premium. Redirects and having good support are those that look more interesting and valuable to me. I’m not the only one thinking like this, just read this thread on Moz from a while ago.
Thank you so much Matteo Duo for this great post.
Glad you found it useful!
I use SEMRush and it’s working well for keywords analysis.
Any cheaper option? I’d be glad to hear ideas that will save me $140/month.
Thanks Matteo, this really clarified what the focus keyword actually does, better than the Yoast blog in fact!
Glad to hear this ?
Very helpful and informative. I’m still very new at all of this but with the help of yoast and wordpress forums / users I’m getting there. Keep up the good work.
Really awesome blog..on keywords..
Choosing keywords is quite different for begginers but your blog help us too much.
Thank you
Does using compound words (marble-top, Empire-style, double-pedestal, etc.) in the Focus keyword field in WordPress negate or minimize its effectiveness in SEO? Thanks in advance.
No matter your keyword, the focus keyword just helps your writing content around it. You can use whatever focus keyword, single-word, keyword phrase, etc. nothing matter for your SEO.
Hello;
I guess its not important and won’t affect my ranking, then there is no need using it will disable it. but what about KEYORDS meta tags do we still need those?
Hey Kingsley,
I’ve covered that in my blog post in the “Focus Keywords vs Meta keywords” paragraph. The short version is that they’re no longer valuable and don’t do anything to your our SEO.
Thanks for the share, can it be used for blogger btw?
and is it working like that guide?
http://www.townoftech.com/2017/11/focus-keyword.html
It’s a guide showing the best placement for focus keyword
Wow…this post realy answered all my questions, though i have one more to ask
Is it advisable to disable keyword analysis on yoast plugin
if i use focus keyword .. google totally focus on my focus keyword and ignore all other keyword in my post??
No, Google doesn’t even know what keyword you have set in your Yoast plugin. The focus keyword part of the plugin is only there to help you optimize your post for a certain keyword (whatever keyword you set as your focus keyword).
I NEVER put focus keyword in place of focus keyword. I just put my keyword in H1, H2, content, slug, meta description and title
its quite hard to get to know about meta keywords and focus keywords my search ends here thankyou!
its quite hard to get to know about meta keywords and focus keywords my search ends here thankyou!
Good article. Correct me if I’m wrong. The focus keyword entered should only be (1) long tail keyword or 1 keyword? I have been entering 4 to 5 sharply relative keywords separated by commas. Presumably, you state this to be Wrong? But if not a long tail keyword, how can this ONE word cover your whole idea ( in first paragraph) of your blog post??
Need to understand this!
Thanks for a reply
Howard
yoast is the best way to get ranking, one of my favorite plugin, thanks for sharing such great info
thanks for sharing about focus keyword.
Thanks for this informative post about selecting a keyword while posting on a WordPress blog.
i am using Yoast SEO for last 3 Months and it is the best tool to Make your post For good Optimization in google.
Thank you, super informative Matt, but I’m still a bit confused.
Could you help me understand this benefit of Yoast Premium, which for me would be the key benefit. I’m new to SEO, to I really appreciate your advice.
The fact that you can optimise for more than 1 keyword, what exactly does that mean?
Would I be able to do the same myself, if I manually entered the keywords into the meta data like here https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_meta.asp ?
Or are we talking about something else? If you could briefly explain, that would be super helpful, thank you.
Best, Christine
Hey Christine,
thanks for your kind words!
As I explained, the Focus Keyword should be interpreted as writing tool more than an SEO tool. With that being said, it means it can help you mostly when you’re writing. By having one or more focus keyword(s) set up, you’re more inclined to focus on them and their synonyms when creating your blog post.
The Premium version of Yoast plugin allows you to have multiple focus keyword but I think the most value it can deliver to you is their premium support channel, which isn’t available through their free Yoast plugin.
Long story short: a blog post with a focus keyword vs a copy of it with a focus keyword aren’t different to search engines. The focus keyword helps you focus your writing around that topic, hence help you create a blog post/page that likely might have more chances of better rankings for that keyword (even though, nowadays algorithms look more for topics rather than specific keywords).
This is extremely useful. I followed the tips mentioned and got the keywords ranked good. Thanks and please keep posting more..
I have learned many things, it’s a good blog post that helps me. I have gathered some valuable thing from your post thanks a lot.
This is my first comment here, so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading your articles.
SEO is an important asset in the search engine
Focus Keyword is matters in seo which is search by the users in Google.
I have learned many things, it’s a good blog post that helps me
Focus Keyword is matters in seo which is search by the users in Google search.
I’m truly enjoying the design and layout of your website.
It’s a very easy on the yes which makes it much more plerasant for
me too come here and visit more often. Diid you hire out a developer to create your theme?
Exceptional work!
Thanks for this seo info
Really helpful article mate
Loved that article..definitely going to mention this page in my post.
Loved it
Before this article I had no idea how yoast seo works on WordPress, thanks for sharing useful information.
Thanks
Thanks for sharing the information.Would help me a lot in the future.
Happy to hear this, thanks for commenting!
Thanks for this Seo info. Keep it up
Thank you!
Thank You soo much for the useful information that you have provided. Keep Posting these type of valuable information with us it helps a lot.
It’s so hard to explain to clients why the Yoast status light shows grey because you didn’t use the “Focus keyword” but the page is well optimized. Many that have used Yoast to guide their SEO practices take the Focus Keyword to be a Google Scripture. Thanks to this post, I can share it with my clients every time the question comes up. Thanks Matteo!
Been there, Burt! Happy to help :)
Thank you for This useful SEO information
Really soo helpful post man :)
It is really Good post. Thanks for that.
Rank math for Yoast which one is better for SEO?
I’ve covered this on the Kinsta blog here: https://kinsta.com/blog/rank-math-vs-yoast/
You might want to check that :)
thank you!
Yoast or Rank math which one is better or which one should i use?
Oh my god.. after using Yoast with wordpress since 3+ years, and reading through many many articles, this is the first article that gave a clear explanation as to what focus keyword is!! Till now i had it confused with meta keywords..
Thank you so much! This article is super helpful!!