The Ripple Effect of a Strong Focus Keyphrase

Do you get impatient with content that seems to meander aimlessly without a specific point? A focus keyphrase helps authors to reduce drifting and hone in on a clear topic. The focus keyphrase is where content and search engine optimization come together.

To rank in search results and be found by readers, website content needs to be acknowledged by search engines as properly optimized. And to be be eagerly consumed by those readers, content needs to be not only of interest, but also well-crafted and finessed. Building content around a thoughtfully developed keyphrase helps achieve both objectives.

Focus keyphrase front and center

New content development isn’t always a linear process. There are times when the route to the end product is remarkably circuitous. But once you’ve found your path, keep the specific focus keyphrase top of mind while finessing your post. Seek ways to include the phrase within the post copy contextually (but avoid keyword stuffing, which is both off-putting to readers and ineffective for search engine placement).

While you may write many related posts around a general topic (and within a blog category), each post should have its own unique keyword phrase. There are benefits to both short and long focus key-phrases. Short, general keyphrases get more search traffic, but are also more competitive (so it’s harder to rank in search results), while long-tailed keyphrases are less common, so if there’s someone out there searching for your term, they’ll likely find your content. Yoast explains further in this post.

From the top: The post title and URL

Your post URL (or link) is made up of two parts: your website domain and a slug, which is derived from the post title. The slug, or the post-specific part of the URL, may exclude some connecting words that are present in the post title. On this post, for example, we opted to omit the connecting words (the, of, a).

• Post Title: The Ripple Effect of a Strong Focus Keyphrase
• Post URL & Slug: https://onlineamplify.com/ripple-effect-strong-focus-keyphrase

Whenever possible, include your focus keyphrase both as part of your post title and in the URL slug.

Four key places to incorporate your keywords phrase

Best practices recommend integrating your keywords phrase into the following:

Intro paragraph: Strive to incorporate your keywords phrase in the introductory paragraph. Depending on your writing style, this can be a tough rule. Even though I know better, there are times when I don’t adhere to this best practice, because I like to lead in to my post topic using thematic content. But it’s an important one to keep in mind.

Sub-headings: Incorporating your keyword phrase in every sub-heading can make for boring or awkward reading. Try not to force it. A good target is roughly half of your H2 and H3 sub-headings.

Density: The SEO formula addresses the relationship between the overall page or post word count and the number of times your keyphrase is used. Both too few and too many mentions result in negative scores. SEO plugins like Yoast calculate the ratio for you, and offer a numeric score or color rating (green is good, red needs work).

Meta description: Be sure that your meta description includes your focus keyphrase. In the absence of an author-provided meta description, search engines extract content from the first paragraph of a post. But often, you can do better. Rather than relying on search engines to import content for your meta description, craft it yourself — with intention.

Make waves with keyphrase variations

Now that you’ve covered the items above, it’s time to raise the bar just a bit. Move beyond simple repetition of a keyword phrase and hone your copy with keyword synonyms, variations and related keyphrases. Related keyphrases not only improve readability for users, they also earn positive recognition from search engines. Learn more about keyword variations, including single vs. plural keywords, in our Keyword Secrets post.

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