Yoast SEO keyword selection

Hi everyone,

I've created a WordPress site and using Yoast SEO. I have several pages including about us, contact us, book now etc. On every page Yoast SEO asks me for target keywords.
My question is, for example would the target keyword for the about us page be 'about us' or the keyword that I want to rank in google?
And if the latter, should I select the same keyword on evey page?

Thanks

 

You want to use the keyword that you want that particular page to rank for. Which will normally be included within your title if you're doing On-page SEO correctly. So in your example "about us" would be a proper keyword to include for an About Us page.

Do not use the same keyword for every page! Again this goes back to proper On-page SEO and using that keyword within the title. Not every article on your site will have the same title. Here you can also include specific long tail keywords.

 

Use "About us" keyword and you can have another keyword which you see better and offpage SEO for that keyword.Do not use about us keyword on every page.

 

Thanks for your reply.
Could you please explain what you mean by 'off page seo' and how I could use my target keyword.

 

Don't worry about the about pages and stuff... you don't want to rank them so no point.

 

Don't worry too much about static pages, the pages that you won't update regularly. Just choose About us and you'll see, Yoast will mark this post with a green color. If you choose any keywords that aren't mentioned in a post's body, they will be colored in red.

 

Don't take this advise!

Just because a page isn't a money page doesn't mean to neglect it. You want to properly optimize every aspect of your site as possible(it's takes a couple minutes). Proper On-site/page SEO can be the difference between a 1st page ranking and 2nd-3rd page ranking. Every page should be passing juice on your site, the better optimized it is the better off you are. Don't be lazy or cut corners because you will get half-assed results.

 

So where exactly do I use my target keyword that I want to rank for in google? On the homepage? But Yoast doesn't let me choose target keyword for home page! Not sure what to do.

 

Yoast does allow the same settings for pages as well.

 

But not for the home page

 

I don't know what CMS you're using, but I'm using Wordpress and it works fine. If you can't figure it out contact the developers of the plugin. I'm sure they can help you and walk you through it.

 

I'm using WordPress too. Could you please let me know how you select keywords for your homepage using Yoast?

 

In the (admin dashboard) left sidebar I click>Pages then scroll down to my Homepage and click>edit. Scroll down to where the Yoast settings are and complete then click>update on the right sidebar. It's the same steps as "Posts", make sure you're searching in "Pages" and not "posts".

 

Thanks but there is no 'homepage' option

 

Such pages like contacts, about us, etc. are NEVER going to be ranked in Google, so do NOT pay such attention to them! Concentrate on your article pages!

 

My website is a booking service and all pages are static pages. I do not have any regular posts.

 

If you selected a static front page (settings>reading> Front page displays > static page) Find the name of the page that you selected as the static front page. This is indicated by the bold words "Front Page" next to the page name. The optimization settings are at the bottom of the page. If you have not selected a static front page then the site is displaying your blog posts as the front page.

 

Google disregards keyword meta tags completely, so for the most part, you're wasting your time with this. That's not to say, you shouldn't target keywords on each page you're trying to rank.

 

You're not correct, about us pages do rank. They are also one of the most important pages on a site. Not everything is based on Homepages/money. Nor is every site a blog. That's if you have a REAL business or Brand. If you have a small MNS making pennies on AdSense/thin affiliate site then it won't matter much.

For a real business/brand it creates trust and tells the story/history of the business/person. Can be the difference between a conversion and a lost sale. Every visitor counts, why wouldn't you take 2 minutes to optimize.

Like his "book now" page example in OP - that's the most important page on his site. It's where the bookings/payments are completed. So no an article post isn't always the best to focus on. Stop always thinking people only make peanuts with AdSense, some of us have real businesses.

 

Thanks Wendy.
In settings, the option of homepage is set to showing latest posts however I do not have any posts nor a page for my homepage.
I've used the Zerif lite theme to create the site. Any other suggestions please?