WordPress, keywords are impossible (are they?)

Keywords are not naturally generated by WordPress. But, if you know how, you can easily correct this.

I will not let you tell me that keywords are useless in modern search engine. It is more or less true, but not totally true. Their lack in the header of an HTML page is not without effect (I would notice that they are exploited by Google to build beter targeted ads). Nonetheless, I would not shout with those who claim this is needed to get a good search engine ranking either (what was critical a few years ago, is now secondary).

This being said, I still wanted to add a keywords field to my WordPress pages and it took some time looking for a solution. I will share it with you.

Initially, I went to the corresponding page in the WordPress help. It gave me pointers to relatively reliable sources for simple solutions (simplicity is always a critical feature for me) allowing to include keywords in my posts/articles.

I chose Bill Thomas micro plug-in. As a matter of fact, this is a single PHP function able to use the keywords you incorporate manually in your posts/articles.

I had to install it, validate it in the dash board and take two last important steps:

  • Add the needed information to the header of the single.php page in order to allow the keywords to appear when requested
    <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="<?php echo keywords(); ?>">
  • Add the keywords custom field in the interested posts/articles (with a list of comma-separated key-words).

EAsy when you know how to do it…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.