Step 1 — Keywords

The pipeline starts with keyword coverage. Without focus keywords in the backend, the internal linking engine has nothing to work with.

What this step produces

After running FETCH → SYNC, every processed page has a focus keyword value stored in the SEO plugin's meta field. This value serves as the optimization target for that page (used by Yoast/Rank Math/AIOSEO analysis) and as the anchor text signal consumed by Automatic Internal Links in Step 2.

Quality considerations

The auto-assigned keyword (page title) is a starting point. For the pipeline to produce optimal results, you should review and adjust keywords for your most strategic pages. Read the limitations page for guidance on when to refine manually.

Related pages

• Focus Keyword — Full plugin documentation
• Pipeline / Step 2 — Links