Focus keyword in Ecommerce site: Should it be used in Product Category pages or Product Pages?

Question

I am working on an E-commerce website on WooCommerce+WordPress platform. I am using Yoast SEO plugin for SEO.

The Yoast SEO plugin recommends you that you can use only one focus keyword on only one page on the entire site. (May be because it confuses the google to bring what page to show when that focus keyword is searched).

So my question is should I use that one focus keyword on product category page or on the product page itself?

Also in that product category there are atleast 4 products (which differ slightly from each other) who will have the same focus keyword.

So in such a case what should I do? Am I missing something? I am new to SEO. I'll be really grateful if someone could help me figure this out. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

First, the advice that a page can only focus on one keyword is out of date. That was the way that SEO worked 7 years ago. Since then Google has made a lot of changes. Now the same page can rank for multiple keywords. It may even rank for synonyms that are not even used on the page.

Today I would say that you should have many pages supporting your keywords. You should use your keywords on multiple pages and you should use synonyms occasionally.

As for your product and categories specifically: Your four products each need some differences to differentiate them. You can't name all four just "widget". You have to provide enough descriptive text so that users can tell the difference. "blue widget", "spiral widget", "green widget", etc.

Product pages are generally better landing pages for an e-commerce site. There is usually an option right there to buy. On category pages uses have to click to a product to buy. So optimize the product pages for phrases that are specific enough that the user can just buy what they see. Optimize the category pages for keywords where the user probably needs to narrow things down further.