How to choose 'focus keywords' to improve SEO?

The ‘SEO focus keyword’ or ‘focus keyphrase’ are the primary keywords that you’re trying to get your article to rank for in Google.

One way to think of approaching this is as a potential customer, and thinking from their 'use case' scenario of how they would find your product or service through search engines and local map searches.

For instance if you are writing a blog post with the intention of acquiring new customers in the Phoenix area who are in need of a wedding photographer. Then think what they might search for.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Where is the potential customer?
2. Who is the target customer?
3. What device are they searching on (mobile, desktop, iphone, android, operating system, etc.)?
4. What search terms are they using?
5. Is the search automatically detecting their geolocation?
6. Do they have a typical price point in mind?
7. What convincers would help increase a sales conversion?
8. Are there some steps I need to do to prepare?

Now let's hypothetically answer these questions for one simple use case, or as we sometimes call it for a specific 'customer story'.

From the perspective of the potential customer:

1. I am in Phoenix
2. I am getting married and looking for a local wedding photographer
3. I am searching on my mobile phone, it is an iphone using Google
4. I do three searches;
   1. Wedding photographer near me
   2. Phoenix wedding photographer
   3. Best reviewed phoenix wedding photographers
5. My mobile detects my location, providing local search results
6. No, I have no idea how much this service will cost
7. To help me choose a photographer I would like to know they have some good reviews (So including this in the article or blog post may be a good idea, perhaps with an internal link to my testimonials page).
8. I may also search for, "How to choose a wedding photographer." Note: Writing an article to address this question without including details of my local services will attract an audience that is too wide. So I need to include details of my services provided in my local service area.

Now with such a scenario written out. Think through what content should be written to best attract new customers who fit this profile.

My focus keyphrase may be something like, 'Phoenix Wedding Photographer' or 'Best Phoenix Wedding Photographer' or 'Choosing Phoenix wedding photographer'.

When multiple words are used this may be referred to as a long tail keyword. Websites that receive very large amounts of traffic, therefore ranking high in search engines (very high domain authority) may not have to use long tail keywords, as they are already dominating the search results. However, for businesses providing local searches will lower traffic volume this is recommended.

Long Tail Keywords Deliver Traffic That Converts Better

A key advantage of long tail keywords is that people who type them into Google are much further along the buyer journey than people who only type in 'head' keywords.

This means that traffic from long tail keywords converts much better than traffic from 'head' keywords.

And that means you can get the same number of customers or sign-ups with a much smaller volume of traffic!

Here are some examples of 'head' keywords compared to their respective 'long tail' keywords:

• travel tips (head keyword)
  travel tips for families (long tail keyword)
• content marketing (head keyword)
  content marketing for lawyers (long tail keyword)
• parenting tips (head keyword)
  parenting tips for single dads (long tail keyword)
• travel tips (head keyword)
  travel tips for families (long tail keyword)
• content marketing (head keyword)
  content marketing for lawyers (long tail keyword)
• parenting tips (head keyword)
  parenting tips for single dads (long tail keyword)

Notice that these examples above are not targeting local searches. Not all websites are selling to a local market.