Focus keyphrase field in SEO plugin

Hello Dave,

Thanks for your question. You SHOULD fill in the focus keyphrase field. It’s the?search term?you want a page or post to rank for. When people search for that phrase, they should find you.?You can learn more at https://yoast.com/focus-keyword/

Hi @maybellyne

As far as I can see, the page you linked to doesn’t say anything about how or whether Google’s algorithm uses the focus keyphrase field in the plugin.

It says the plugin uses the contents of the keyphrase field to give me feedback to help me optimise the wepage itself, but

(a) I haven’t received any feedback about that from the plugin, and

(b) in any case if all it means is that it will tell me to include the keyphrase on the webpage itself then I still don’t see the point in filling in the field.

is there any point? If so, what is the point?

Dave

• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by daverado.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by daverado.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by daverado.

Hi @daverado

You are asking what’s the point of filling in the focus keyphrase field.

The focus keyphrase you choose to add within the SEO section, once you write some content, our plugin’s analysis can provide suggestions on how you can optimize your content for that keyphrase. For example, if your focus keyphrase is “test”, the SEO analysis will check if the keyphrase is present in the seo title and whether you have added the same keyphrase in other posts etc.

About adding keyphrase, yes, Yoast SEO will provide suggestions where the keyphrase should be present in your content. Yoast SEO will not automatically add the keyphrase in your content.

Hi @611shabnam.

1) As I wrote in my reply to @maybellyne above, I haven’t received any analysis or suggestions from the plugin. Every page on the site has the key phrase field filled in, and most pages have done for a long time – so when will I receive the analysis or suggestions from the plugin?

2) In any case, if all it will tell me is whether or not the page and its title contain the key phrase, it wouldn’t take me any more time to check that manually than it would take me to fill in the key phrase field. Does it do more than just check the page content and title and let me know whether they contain the keyphrase? If not, I still don’t see the point of filling in the field.

Thanks for your help.

Dave

If you aren’t receiving any feedback after filling the focus keyphrase field, provide us with screenshots of the Yoast SEO meta box that highlight the issue you are experiencing. You can use any image-sharing service like https://pasteboard.co/, https://snag.gy/, https://imgur.com/, https://snipboard.io/, or even upload the screenshot to your own website. Once you upload it to an image-sharing service, please share the link to the image here.

Is this what you’re asking me for?

Yes, that’s it. Can you take a fuller/wider screenshot showing the whole metabox?

What is a metabox?

Hi @maybellyne

Not sure if you saw my previous message. I don’t know what the word metabox means. Please could you explain?

Thanks

Dave

Hello @daverado,

The Yoast SEO meta box is where you add the SEO meta tags for a particular post or page, usually under the default WordPress content editor. These images are an exmaple – https://tinyurl.com/27ypybsv & https://tinyurl.com/29pk5bw2

It takes 3 screen captures to get it all in. Here, here and here.

The focus keyphrase you entered is Individuals Portraits Photography. When you click SEO analysis with that focus keyphrase underneath, you will get feedback from our content analysis. See screenshot – https://tinyurl.com/23b6hz5c