What is “Focus Keyword”?
The focus keyword in SEO Product Optimizer allows you to target your products against certain niche with a set of keyword. Say if you are selling Christmas decoration, a general keyword like " Christmas tree" will have a high search volume. However you can hardly rank your web page against this keyword because there are dozens of store owners already trying to do so. As a result your product page will be buried in the 2nd page or the 4th page in the search result.
When we are doing SEO, we are trying to list our web page within the top 5 results in the 1st page. This is because the 1st page will be accounting for 90% traffic of the search result. If your SEO strategy cannot boost your search position in the 1st page, it will be very likely that NO ONE will be going to visit your web page. In the above case it may be much better to use a long one "christmas decorations ideas" or "christmas decorations 2016".
Therefore it's very important to pick a suitable focus keyword with a suitable search volume, may be a couple of thousands each month with moderate competition. The most important thing is we can rank our web page in the top 5 results in order to convert visitors into real customers. Instead of targeting the competitive keywords with hundreds of thousands of search volume, we focus on long tail keywords with less competition but with a stable and long term demand.
How to pick a suitable Focus Keyword?
Our Keywords Analysis can help you to find out a suitable keyword for a product. You can refer to our another FAQ: How can I make use of the keyword suggestion?
What should I do with Focus Keyword?
You should include the focus keyword in your product content, from product title, product description , meta Title (shown in search result), meta description (shown in search result), URL. But it is not necessary to repeat the keyword in product description, i.e keyword stuffing. You can create unique content in product description or blog post to maximize the effect of the focus keyword. Google always loves unique content.
Will the Focus Keyword affect my social sharing performance?
Yes and No. You can definitely include the focus keyword into the Social Sharing Optimizer . If the focus keyword is having a consistent demand on Search Engines, we assume it will also attract its target audience on various social platforms.
Reference:
The Long Tail written by Chris Anderson - https://www.wired.com/2004/10/tail/