What is an SEO focus keyword, a term from Yoast SEO software?

I. Definition of a Target SEO Query:

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The target SEO query is the search term a user enters for which you want your website to rank first.

Practical example: You are a family law attorney practicing in the 15th^th arrondissement of Paris.

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Having your site appear first when a user searches for "best family law attorney Paris 15" will allow you to receive numerous calls from people who could potentially use your services. Your target SEO query in this case is therefore: "best family law attorney Paris 15".

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"Target SEO query" generally refers to the term used by the free SEO plugin for WordPress: Yoast SEO.

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II. What is the SEO focus keyword in Yoast SEO?

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As a reminder, Yoast SEO is a free plugin for WordPress that helps optimize your SEO on Google. The focus keyword is used by Yoast SEO to analyze and evaluate your content against a specific keyword.

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The plugin analyzes your content and provides suggestions to optimize the use of a keyphrase in your titles, meta description, and the content itself. Yoast SEO can also offer ideas to improve your content's structure.

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By defining a focus keyword, you enable Yoast SEO to guide you in optimizing your content. This increases your chances of ranking at the top of search results for that query.

It's important to note that following the recommendations from Yoast SEO absolutely does not guarantee you a high ranking in search engines for the targeted query.

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Yoast SEO is a powerful optimization tool that provides recommendations based on statistics. However, a strong grasp of SEO and more in-depth analysis are essential to significantly optimize your visibility.

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Furthermore, if you target a highly competitive keyword and your site has significantly lower authority than the sites ranked on the first page for that keyword, it is highly unlikely that you will achieve a good position for it.

As a reminder, a site's authority refers to the credibility Google grants it.

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III. How to effectively choose which SEO target query to rank for?

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To determine which target queries you want to rank for, you need to implement a keyword strategy.

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A keyword strategy is an action plan designed to identify and select the keywords you want your site to rank for.

To define a keyword strategy, you need to first identify the topics you wish to rank for in the long term.

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Then ask yourself the following questions: "What are the most important topics for my business ? On which topics will I be able to position myself within a reasonable timeframe ? Which keywords within these topics will generate qualified traffic to my site that I can then convert into customers? "

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The keywords of the first topic you target will form your initial target queries. Indeed, to act as effectively as possible, we recommend that you work on topics one by one.

An effective SEO technique is to create a semantic cocoon. A semantic cocoon works as follows:

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-    Creation of a pillar page targeting the main keyword you want to rank for. This page links to several of your articles covering more specific topics.

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-    Creation of 3 to 5 satellite pages which address these more specific topics and also link back to the pillar page.

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Your pillar page therefore links to each of your satellite pages, and each satellite page links back to your pillar page. The satellite pages are also linked to each other.

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This allows your user to understand the topic in depth. Furthermore, it shows Google that you possess genuine expertise on the subject.

Practical example: You are a wealth management advisor (WMA) and you are looking to rank your site first for the topic of tax optimization.

You will write a first article with the target query: " tax optimization ".

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This article should perfectly present to the user everything they wish to learn about the subject.

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You will create between 3 and 5 articles that cover more specific topics related to tax optimization. These could, for example, discuss " real estate tax exemption ", the " Pinel scheme " or " FCPI ".

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IV. Why clearly defining your target SEO queries is essential

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Clearly defining your target queries is essential. Indeed, you need to implement an ambitious, coherent, and realistic keyword strategy.

If you target overly competitive keywords from the start, no one will read your content because it will never appear in a good position.

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Google will therefore never realize that you are producing quality content and will thus not promote it.

Conversely, if you write articles only on very low-competition topics that interest too few internet users, your SEO strategy is doomed to fail. These articles will bring you very little or no traffic and your SEO ROI risks being very poor.

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To be able to define the best keywords to rank for, it is absolutely necessary to have solid knowledge of natural referencing (SEO) and to useSEO tools like SEMrush.

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If you lack the knowledge or time to implement an effective SEO strategy, opting forSEO support offered by a specialized agency is advisable.

At Afalence, as a young agency, we can assist you with this at competitive rates.

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If you're looking for a provider to help you with SEO, contact us.

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