Hey!!
New to SEO Yoast and the topic in general. I was wondering how people work with keywords, my assumption would be that they have different focus keywords for each page? Would this increase the chance of my website appearing in a search engine search?
The most important factors are your permalink structure, your title tag, and your headers.
The focus keyword is not very important and I wouldn’t put a lot of emphasis on it neither is the meta description. Google does not use these to rank sites.
It’s important to write good meta description to increase CTR in the SERPs, but it will not help with your SEO.
Don’t think in terms of keywords, think in terms of just writing really good stuff. The keywords will come naturally in your writing.
It’s also very important to diversify traffic sources because relying on Google is never a sure bet.
Thanks for the reply. I am relatively new to SEO so am still learning.
I have set the permalink structure to post names on wordpress.
The one thing I am confued with is the title tag. Is this set in the “SEO Title” on the yoast plugin, or do I need to change it somewhere else (I am using wordpress)
Also when you say about headers, what do you mean? Having a variation of h1 and h2?
Thanks in advance
I have set the permalink structure to post names on wordpress.
Good. That’s usually better than the default for SEO.
The one thing I am confued with is the title tag. Is this set in the “SEO Title” on the yoast plugin, or do I need to change it somewhere else (I am using wordpress)
Yeah, Yoast is doing that for you, supposedly. You can check your page - if you are using chrome, right click on the page while viewing it and view source. Then check somewhere within the for a YourTitlehere tag. If the title is what you set in Yoast for that page, then it’s doing it’s job.
Also when you say about headers, what do you mean? Having a variation of h1 and h2?
Yeah, presumably they meant “headings” which are h1, h2 tags.
Don’t think in terms of keywords, think in terms of just writing really good stuff. The keywords will come naturally in your writing.
There’s nothing wrong with keeping keywords in mind - that’s why Yoast has a “focus” one - as opposed to a giant list or something - the trick is to not artificially saturate your content with it. Write naturally, just keep in mind what you want people to be searching for to find the thing. A lot of people overdo it and have keyword-ridden copy that starts to make little sense, or look goofy.
It’s important to write good meta description to increase CTR in the SERPs, but it will not help with your SEO.
Right. The meta description tag isn’t for the search engine, it’s for the people who have now found your listing - and you have a line of copy under the page title to convince them that they should click it 
Where we differ is on importance - I think that’s critically important as all the SEO in the world won’t help if people don’t click the danged link 
Awesome Reply thanks very much.
I am learning fast with SEO, and have to say this is the best forum for it. I recently posted on a dedicated SEO forum and was shot down very quickly for being a beginner! Different vibe on here, cheers guys!
I am getting the jist that it is all about updating websites (especially whilst writing top quality content) with the right keywords, headings, permalinks and titles are the key to getting the website up the search engine rankings- in terms of on page optimization?
Yeah, in terms on on page optimization that’s all excellent starting points.
I find that SEO conversation anywhere (even here) can be extremely frustrating, as you have a lot of buzzword tips - one line, useless responses, people selling their traffic services, discussion about schemes and backlink spam and whatever else. It’s annoying. But if you want good content / general SEO advice I feel like Sitepoint is a better place than most - there’s quite a few level-headed people here who can help
I recently posted on a dedicated SEO forum and was shot down very quickly for being a beginner! Different vibe on here, cheers guys!
I’m glad you feel that way. That sort of attitude is one of the first things that attracted me to Sitepoint Forums as well - that at least a majority of the members seem to be willing and able to help each other without being idiots
Good luck with your project (presuming we’re discussing one in particular)!
Thanks for your response.
Yes I am doing a website for a friend, something they had just knocked up on vista print: http://www.selftransporterhire.co.uk
They pay nearly ÂŁ200 a month using google adwords. As I had said before Google adwords and SEO is something I had never done before. So I said to them I would design a website that would look better, especially when responsive and give it an SEO make over (whilst learning along the way obviously) I have started building the website on one of myold domain names: http://www.neverup-neverin.com and plan to switch the content, plugins etc onto the correct domain name for the 1st of July.
My plan so far on the day of the switch is so far:
AM I missing anything major here I should be doing to give it the best chance in search engines?
Apologies if there’s something that is obvious to some people, I’m just starting out in this!
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