Introduction
Welcome to the comprehensive guide on Target Keywords in the Booster SEO Optimizer app. This guide not only provides an overview of what target keywords are, why they matter, and how they function within the app but also offers practical tips on troubleshooting and addressing issues related to target keywords in the SEO Audits section.
What are Target Keywords
Target Keywords are the specific search words or phrases that you focus on to help potential customers find your product or page through an online search. Ideally, your target keywords should be a phrase commonly used by potential customers when searching for products similar to yours.
Why are Target Keywords Important
Having the right Target Keywords helps your product stand out in online searches. When people search for things like your product, they enter certain words or phrases into Google that best describe what they're looking for! So if you use the same keywords on your product page, the search engine matches them to it, making your product appear higher in search results. This means more people will see your product, click on it, and potentially buy it!
Here's an example: Jane searches for "chocolate-covered espresso beans bulk" on Google. You and a competitor, both similar companies selling espresso beans in bulk, appear in Jane's search results. However, if one of your product pages is optimized with that exact keyword phrase while your competitor's page is not keyword-optimized, it's your website that will then appear first, increasing the likelihood that Jane will click and buy from your site. If your pages aren't keyword-optimized, you risk missing out on many customers because they won't find you.
How Target Keyword Phrases Work in SEO Optimizer
At the top of each SEO Audit detail view within the Products, Pages, Posts, and Collection categories in SEO Optimizer, you'll see a target keyword phrase:
This phrase represents the search term you are targeting—what you want potential customers to search on Google to find your product. At each audit step, the app notifies you if the target keyword phrase is missing. For example:
Issues Related to Target Keywords
To boost your pages' ranking on Google, it's important to optimize each page for a specific keyword phrase. This involves ensuring that the keyword phrase appears in specific places, including the page title and meta description. To help you in this process, the app will warn you if the target keyword phrase is missing in each step of the SEO Audit or if it has not been used enough in your page content (the product description).
→ Missing Target Keywords
There are multiple warnings related to missing target keywords in the SEO Audit. These warnings may appear differently in each step, but they all indicate the same issue, which can be easily addressed. Here are the different warnings related to Missing Target Keywords:
"Add exact target keyword phrase" in title / description — this warning appears under Page Title or Meta Description in Step 2 of the audit.
"Target keywords NOT found" in product title / product description — this warning appears under Step 3, the Content Checks section of the audit.
"Target keywords not found in alt text" — this warning appears under the Image Alt Text or Step 4 of the audit.
"Target keywords NOT found" in Title tag / meta description — this warning appears on the Last Step. Scan Issues of the audit.
"Target keywords needed" — this warning appears on the Last Step. Scan Issues of the audit.
→ Keyword Density
Keyword density is a calculation of how often your keyword appears in your page content (specifically, the product description) divided by the total number of words in that description. If the target keyword phrase has not been incorporated in a page content enough, the warning below will appear on SEO Audit:
"Content has a keyword density of ___%. Should be between 2-3%" — this warning appears under Step 3, the Content Checks section of the audit.
Fixing Target Keyword Issues
Now that we've identified all the problems related to target keywords, let's go through the steps on how we can address them:
→ How to Fix "Add exact target keyword phrase" or "Target keywords NOT found" in title / description Issues
To address the issue and resolve these warnings ("Add exact target keyword phrase" and "Target keywords NOT found" in title / description), follow the steps below:
Copy the target keyword phrase found at the top of the audit:
Scroll down to Step 3 and add the target keyword phrase:
Although the warning "Add exact target keyword phrase" is under Page Title or Meta Description in Step 2, the easiest way to fix this is to scroll down to Step 3 and add the target keyword phrase (exactly, word for word) to the Product Title and Product Description.
Save changes and refresh the audit page.
(The page title and meta description are usually taken from the product title and product description by default, so adding the keywords to your product information will fix both.)
Here's an example in the meta description. (To fix a missing keyword in the page title, follow the same steps but change the product title.):
After refreshing the audit page, the issue should be resolved:
💡Heads up! The app might show other warnings about missing keywords in places like the Title tag or alt text. Don't worry, fixing them is easy! Just follow the same steps as above – add the keywords where they're missing! And if you're curious about other specific warnings, check out our handy Tips for "Fix This" guides for each one.
→ How to Fix "Content has a keyword density of ___%" Issue
To increase keyword density, simply incorporate the target keywords (typically a few times) into the product description:
To make this process more straightforward, the first thing to consider is to simplify the target keyword phrase. By default, the target keyword phrase mirrors the product title, such as "MechaCat Robotic Cat" in the example above. However, repeating this phrase multiple times in the product description may sound awkward or unnatural. To address this, let's simplify the target keyword phrase to a shorter phrase that potential customers might use to search for a product like yours:
Next, insert your customized keyword phrase into the product description until the keyword density reaches at least 2%.
