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We have a site for a client called "New Start New Jersey"

Whenever someone searches for exactly that search phrase on Google and other search engines, the site does not come up on the first few pages.

Searching for "Start New Jersey", or even "Start Jersey" returns the desired results.

It looks like the word "new" appearing multiple times in the title of the site causes some sort of confusion.

Is there any way by using metadata to improve the search results when someone searches exactly by the company name?

Andrey
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    There are no such things as stop words – John Conde Apr 20 '15 at 19:15
  • @JohnConde seoworkers.com reports it as an issue "The title contains stop words which are ignored by the most search engines" I have also read claims that they don't exist, but this behavior is hard to explain without them – Andrey Apr 20 '15 at 19:20
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    Online tools like that are shams. Don't make decisions based on what they say. – John Conde Apr 20 '15 at 19:23
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    John is right! There is no such things as stop words. There was over a decade ago before semantic search began- some terms were useless to index but became powerful again in semantic search. Listen. There are a lot of cr@p sites out there trying to sell you cr@p. Hell! You and I can setup a junk site in less than 30 days and make a ton of money. The problem is that these are junk sites- all of them! Even the best of the best are selling some level of junk. The reason why your page does not show up at the top of the SERPs is because these terms are too common for you to compete with. Simple. – closetnoc Apr 20 '15 at 21:00
  • I updated the title to remove the assumption @closetnoc If the only problem is common terms, then why are we the number one hit for "Start New Jersey"? – Andrey Apr 20 '15 at 21:32
  • Because you compete for these terms. When terms are common, you stand to compete with everyone who uses them. You have to stop thinking in linear text based logic. Semantics stretches across pages and all elements of content throughout your site and across markets and industries to include term usage on other sites that link to your site, your competitors, and so on. The complexity as to why someone competes for any word is far more vast than on-page / off-page signals. Search performance is getting so volatile these days that small changes can really tip the scales anymore. – closetnoc Apr 20 '15 at 21:40
  • Yes. In part you are right. The use of the term "new" is redundant and only counted once and weighted once based upon search history and a presumption of search intent. The results would be different using quoted strings. – closetnoc Apr 20 '15 at 21:42
  • It might help you to read this answer: http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/74633/well-structured-urls-vs-urls-optimized-for-seo/74639#74639 Skip the very top. It describes fairly well some of the mechanics behind what you are describing. – closetnoc Apr 20 '15 at 21:45
  • As far as I can see whether I search for "new start new jersey" with or without quotation marks I get the right website as no 1 position. Perhaps time has healed this issue? – richhallstoke May 07 '15 at 15:23

2 Answers2

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When taking a look at a few backlink tools I noticed there aren't too many with anchor text which mention the full name "New Start New Jersey". Start by getting a Google Business profile up to show up in Google Maps and Google+, a Yelp profile, and anywhere else you can create structured data which points back to your site and references the full name.

David Garcia
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Google+ pages certainly helps if its a new domain, also get on Bing places if your not on there already, tweet and post a bit and im sure within a few weeks you should start appearing for the full search term.

Maybe rename your about page called nsnj.com/new-start-new-jersey and put in a rewrite from the existing URL to the new-start-new-jersey page.

Maybe also adding NAP schema to your footers more info--> http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2014/03/10/10-guidelines-for-putting-nap-info-on-your-site-for-local-seo/

WebStudio
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