There was a time when many people advised me the first sentence (or two) of text was crucial to search engines and how your site was indexed and identified.

Is this still true? Was it ever true?

How important is the first bit of text?

Often times the first bit of text is links/navigation. Should this be avoided?

Should you make sure you have a sentence of relevant text & keywords as the first text on your page?

There was a time when many people advised me the first sentence (or two) of text was crucial to search engines and how your site was indexed and identified.

Is this still true? Was it ever true?

Indeed it was true, Tim, and still is. Search engines generally use the first text it indexes as the description in it's search results.

How important is the first bit of text?

Important. In terms of Google, not as important as your <title> tag, but still, it is important. As stated above, this is usually what is used as the description in search results, so your keywords and phrases should be in this text.

Often times the first bit of text is links/navigation. Should this be avoided?

If possible, you should always have your descriptive text first, rather than your navigation. I know it's not always easy, often I just leave the navigation at the start, and hope for the best. If your navigation can be moved further down, without hindering the design of the site, then do it.

Should you make sure you have a sentence of relevant text & keywords as the first text on your page?

Cater for humans, not for robots. Your first section of text should be describing what your site is about, not for search engines, but for the human visitors. Recently there has been a lot of talk about search engines liking standard, human text, better than text that is obviously there to serve robots.

Jamie, thanks for the great reply and information! :)

I have an additional question if you don't mind.

If I change the top navigation links to images instead of text (so that the first 'live' text is my descriptive sentences right below), is this bad? Is it ok as long as I include a site map or live text navigation links at the bottom of the page?

I hope that made sense. :blush:

If I change the top navigation links to images instead of text (so that the first 'live' text is my descriptive sentences right below), is this bad? Is it ok as long as I include a site map or live text navigation links at the bottom of the page?

That may well help, Tim. Search engines can navigate using images, IIRC, not as well as text, but still, they can, so it shouldn't hinder the attempts from search engines to index your site. Obviously though, a site map or text links at the bottom of the page would provide that extra security, so it's always worthwhile.

Give it a try and see what happens, with any luck, you'll be pleasantly surprised. :)

Jamie, thanks again very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to help.

:)

Originally posted by Equentity - Jamie
That may well help, Tim. Search engines can navigate using images, IIRC, not as well as text, A spider can navigate via image links "as well" as it can text, but using only images means you lose any value you could get from anchor text (though you do introduce ALT and TITLE text into the equation). From the purely SEO standpoint, that's the main reason to always back up image links with text links. The broader marketing and usability standpoints provide other reasons as well.

That really helped, Jamie, nice one
I have always been let to believe that the description and <title> are the best ways to get indexed.

Originally posted by gfxguru
I have always been let to believe that the description and <title> are the best ways to get indexed. Generally the description isn't given weight in ranking, while the title is very important.

Any text on the page is useful (while the concept of "keyword density" isn't so much in play these days, it's a reminder that those words can be anywhere), but the key spots are within headings, emphasized text, link anchors, ALT and TITLE elements, etc. Also taken into consideration is the anchor text of off-page links pointing to you, and even text on those linking pages.

But remember, don't go too far... overemphasis of your targeted words or phrases can backfire, and concepts like latent semantic analysis would tell you that finding alternatives to words and phrases would pay off.

A spider can navigate via image links "as well" as it can text, but using only images means you lose any value you could get from anchor text

Bingo, that's what I was after. Thanks Jay. I knew there was some sort of 'limitation' compared to text links, but couldn't quite remember what it was.

If possible, you should always have your descriptive text first, rather than your navigation.

Is the best solution to use CSS and place your elements in the preferred order? It's seems like it would be.

For example:
<div id="content"> foo foo foo </div>

<div id="navigation"> foo foo foo </div>

<div id="logo"> foo </div>

etc.

That's one solution, Conky. :) It can sometimes be hard to do this though, which is why I often forget it, unless it is a site for a customer where they have specifically requested maximum search engine exposure.

It can sometimes be hard to do this though, which is why I often forget it...

Agreed. The "standards" don't seem to mean very much. I tend to design/test with Firefox and then try to make it work for as many others as possible. This method seems to work pretty well. I've also gone so far as to have 3 different style-sheets (IE/Nav/everything else) and load the right one with a javascript detect. Cumbersome, but effective.

I never really thought about the potential SEO benefits before reading this thread. I just used CSS to see if I could produce an effective design while sticking to W3C standards.:cool: Who knew it would have tangible benefits?

When it comes to the actual markup, the tangible benefits come from using markup that is best suited to human visitors. This is why separating structure from style is so important.

If all of your style is controlled within a style document, you can freely apply proper content heirarchy using heading tags and not worry about how they look (because everything can be styled). This benefits visitors, because it gives content clarity and makes special functionality work for people with disabilities. Conversely, it benefits search engines - defining your content heirarchy helps SEs identify important topics.

The two are intertwined closely, and with every algorithm tweak to SE rankings, optimizing for humans beings you that much closer to being best positioned for favorable SE inclusion.

This comes full circle back to Tim's question, as it answers his question and similar ones. Do you load up the first couple sentences with keywords to attract more attention? Probably, but not necessarily because it will help SEs. Do it because it will give human visitors a snapshot of what to expect on the page. The SEs will recognize the value in this, and may reward you accordingly :)

(they also have a knack for knowing when you're trying too hard to please them, and they may punish you for this - so keep the content honest!)

(they also have a knack for knowing when you're trying too hard to please them, and they may punish you for this - so keep the content honest!)

Sounds like you're talking about my wife! :rolleyes: ;)

Originally posted by Conky
Sounds like you're talking about my wife! :rolleyes: ;) :rofl:

Too funny!

(welcome to WHT, by the way)