Should I include the word 'best' in my focus keyword?

I'm following a BHW Amazon affiliate guide for building out a micro niche site. I can't link to the guide or else I be marked for spam unfortunately.

My question is this- should I include 'best' in my Yoast focus keyword? Or if I include the word best in my text enough times will Google register it?

For example - Best Mattress for Back Pain vs. Mattress for Back Pain

I've noticed that a lot of the top results for my keywords don't explicitly put the 'best' before the keyword, but are still top ranking. They actually use the exact keyword match not very often.

How does this work? Does the competitiveness of the niche have to do with it? Can I be more flexible with the order of the keyword phrase? That is, can I use 'Only the best mattresses will be able to help back pain' and achieve the same results as using 'I've put together a list of the best mattresses for back pain?'

have a look at your competition soon no.

if your using paid traffic goes with the trends.

if your using SEO to get sales different story learn seo and kw marketing.

The focus keyword in Yoast plugin is there just so Yoast can give you an estimate how good your on-page SEO is.

putting best in the FIRST spot in your title-Tag will give you a better position from your competitors as it good for CTR and people likes these terms for example: top 10.../ Best 10.../ 14 Tips For ... it gives high CTR = High Clicks rate and more people click on your link.. more google will rank you up.

Best is an Intent keyword, meaning people will click easily on that link and may buy because of that word.

So yes try and use it whenever it's right to use it

the gent said:

putting best in the FIRST spot in your title-Tag will give you a better position from your competitors as it good for CTR and people likes these terms for example: top 10.../ Best 10.../ 14 Tips For ... it gives high CTR = High Clicks rate and more people click on your link.. more google will rank you up.

Click to expand...

ditto on this
@puppetm@ster - also you need to include the word "best" in your h tags and in your <p> tags. take a look at number #1 spot for "best mattress" : https://www.businessinsider.com/best-mattress
use this tool https://www.keywordsheaven.com/on-page-tool/

number of times "best mattress" mentioned in the following tags:
<p> tag: 5 times
h1 tag: 1
h2 tag: 4
h3 tag: 4
title tag: 1
description tag: 1

now use the same tool and just search for the keyword "best"!!!

WhaTheFak said:

The focus keyword in Yoast plugin is there just so Yoast can give you an estimate how good your on-page SEO is.

Click to expand...

Exactly. So should my Yoast keyword be 'Best Mattress for Back Pain" or "Mattress for Back Pain?"

WhaTheFak said:

The focus keyword in Yoast plugin is there just so Yoast can give you an estimate how good your on-page SEO is.

Click to expand...

So I can get away with just using 'best' in my meta title and not in my first paragraph?

fb3003 said:

ditto on this
@puppetm@ster - also you need to include the word "best" in your h tags and in your <p> tags. take a look at number #1 spot for "best mattress" : https://www.businessinsider.com/best-mattress
use this tool https://www.keywordsheaven.com/on-page-tool/

number of times "best mattress" mentioned in the following tags:
<p> tag: 5 times
h1 tag: 1
h2 tag: 4
h3 tag: 4
title tag: 1
description tag: 1

now use the same tool and just search for the keyword "best"!!!

Click to expand...

That's a fantastic tool. Thank you for the tip!!

puppetm@ster said:

Exactly. So should my Yoast keyword be 'Best Mattress for Back Pain" or "Mattress for Back Pain?"


So I can get away with just using 'best' in my meta title and not in my first paragraph?

Click to expand...

yoast = best mattress for back pain
still - i would not rely this. yoast does not take in consideration on how your niche is. you need to do a little bit better than the average of the top 10 sites on your niche.

as for the last Q:
you need both. your primary keyword should be in the first 100 words of your first <p> tag