Keywords Not Working in Google Search

[realph]

I recently built this site [(http://www.sykeshr.co.uk)](http://www.sykeshr.co.uk “http://www.sykeshr.co.uk”), and am having problems when trying to search for the site using the keywords in Google.

These are the keywords I’ve set:

content=”sykes, hr, sykeshr, human, resources, infrastructure, projects, buckinghamshire, slough, gerrards, cross, gerrards cross, london, recruitment, beaconsfield, chalfont st peter, amersham, chesham, performance, consultant, consultancy, personnel”

But for some reason, I can only get Google to return the site if I explicitly search for “sykes hr” or “sykeshr”. For example, if I search “sykes hr buckinghamshire”, Google doesn’t return the site.

Any idea why this is? Thanks in advance for any help.

[pmac627]

Keywords aren’t the only thing that influence Google results. While I still believe it is good practice to use the keywords meta tag, it holds little weight with search engines these days because of misuse.

From source view it looks like your site is WordPress based, not my specialty. Others might be able to give you WP-specific suggestions. But some things to consider are making sure that the keywords are used consistently throughout the webpage. The keywords should be in the title tag, used in the header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc).

3 of your h3 tags have random letters in them; “q” “{” “g” Thats because you are using “Glyphish” to make the images above each section. Perhaps you could assign classes or ids to those three h3 tags and give them background images so you can put a keyword in there instead.

Searches are based on relevancy and consistency of keywords throughout the page (among many other factors). Get a tad more text on the page relevant to those keywords might help.

Again, I hope someone familiar with WP might post and give you some WP-specific SEO advice.

EDIT: I must also note, keywords should be used consistently through the title tag, header tags, etc but with purpose. Don’t just load them all up with a list of keywords.

[Senff]

If WordPress, install Yoast’s SEO plugin. It’ll show you how to set the proper things in your site, posts and pages to get better SEO.

[TheDoc]

Meta data is almost meaningless to Google at this point. Make sure your content includes those keywords first and foremost.

[pmac627]

Does WordPress offer any support for Microdata? Like I said, I know next to nothing about WP.

[realph]

Thanks guys! I installed the Yoast SEO plugin, and added descriptions and keywords for every page. I’ll need to wait and see if it makes a difference.

I’ll also get onto my client tomorrow and try and get her to involve some of the keywords in the pages.

[Gowebbaby]

Google already stated they not take keywords meta tags in their ranking algorithm but they are useful in Google News. For Google main search Use your main keyword naturally in title tag, H1 Tag and your content. I cant see your keyword “sykes hr buckinghamshire” in title or h1 tag. See our website for example [http://www.gowebbaby.com/wordpress-designer](http://www.gowebbaby.com/wordpress-designer “Example”)

[realph]

@JoshWhite Thanks Josh! Yeah, I only the scanned the site yesterday and found out that the words “buckinghamshire” or “human resources” were nowhere to be found. She’s going to have a look a site and try and include some more of those keywords in the content. Even if that means rewriting some of the copy completely.

Also, thank you to everyone for the help.

[TheDoc]

Yea, that’s why copy writing is so important but the majority of clients don’t really understand that and just end up rushing it all at the very end. I always recommend that clients hire a professional copy writer. None of them do. :(

[jeffc]

To add to Doc’s and Josh’s points, you’ve got 20 really generic KWs on a 5-page site that only has 22 paragraphs. You need to focus on fewer but longer KW phrases. Think what Google sees: “hr uk” returns 500 _million_ hits. Join google analytics and you can see where you rank for different word combos and get suggestions. Yoast also makes a google analytics WP plugin. Results can be surprising; some sites rank well on words they hadn’t targeted.

A new biz can’t just set KWs to “business solutions” or “infrastructure project” and expect to rank anywhere in the top 500 by Friday. Good luck!

[Author]

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