Bold & Italics Best Practice?
-
Hi All,
Does anyone know the official best practice use of bold and italic fonts?
If I have a long page of text- 800 words + I usually bold a few sentences to allow the user to be able to read only the bold on the page, and still make sense of the article. By reading all the bold it will kind of make sense and the user gets the point of the article.
This wasn't really done for SEO purposes, but so the reader gets to the bottom of the page in a reasonable amount of time, and gets all the key points and facts of the article.
I was advised not to do this and to just bold/italic the keyword/phrases the article was written to rank for.
I would like to know anyone else's opinion/strategy on using bold/italics effectively and within best practices.
What's the official word?
Thank you for your help. Ian
-
I am working on an Online Digital Marketing Magazine and many times I am explaining a concept or something about marketing. If I am talking about Topic "A" and I explain what it means and why it is important, I like embolden the topic I am explaining and put the explanation in italics.
In my view, this is for the purpose of skimming the article to pick out the more important parts. Additionally, since the topics being explained are the targeted keywords I figured it would add to SEO, I just hope it doesn't hurt rankings but the ever looming over-optimizing threat. Not sure on any quantitative limits on bold and italicized text but would love to see some numbers on this topic.
I guess I am approaching this with a usability and reader perspective but everyone is different, and I know someone will look at the article and be like oh no why!>?
Please let me know if you think this way or a good reason to stop thinking this way.
-
Ian, the use of bold and italic text within pages or articles is so minute to the SEO ranking factors that your best focusing on what really matters for getting ranked. This article can help you see that bold and italic text doesn't even make the list http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors. Even the H1 tag is 3/4 the way down the list.
Per using bold and italic text for your readers, absolutely! Use it appropriately as it seems you have been doing. Also, consider breaking up content with bullet points or using call out sections in the page (if using WordPress, they have plugins and widgets for these call outs to highlight important content snips).
I'd stray away from bolding singular keywords or italicizing a keyword as those are old, out-dated SEO tactics which were never proven to have any affect, positively or negatively. Keep doing what you're doing and always keep your readers' best interests in mind for them to have a nice experience on your site(s)... Google will see this in the Analytics as they remain on the site/pages longer.
Hope this was helpful. - Patrick
-
Hi Ian,
As already covered, there is no official word on using bold and italics improving your SEO that I know of. I also suspect it might be looked upon favourably by Google, but I think it's only ever going to be a minor factor compared to the keyword density in the article and the positioning of the keyword in page headings (H1-H3) and page title.
Personally I think you would create more of an impact by splitting up the article (if possible) under different headings and into managable paragraphs and sentences and testing it using a tool like Flesch Reading Ease, rather than bolding inline sentences/keywords.
George
-
I think bolding key sentences to help readability is a great way to go. People tend to scan webpages instead of reading every word. I don't think only bolding keywords is wise since it looks really tacky and probably has zero effect on your ranking for the targeted keyword. It might even be considered spammy.
-
Hi Ian,
Bold and anchor text sure helps. But there's really no official word on this.
I would suggest to always stick to what's best for the user. If you think that highlighting the most relevant phrases will help the user get the article much more faster, then stick to it. These way, you will provide a better user experience and probably reduce bounce rate as well. Users won't get bored by too much text and leave.
Also, you don't want to over optimise your site.
Remember to always build your sites for users, not for robots.
Hope it helps!
Guillermo
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best site Template, Structure, etc. for SEO
If I were to spin up a new site what do people recommend as the best template, services, etc. Do you have an example of the perfect structure, I want to point my team to an example page and say - This is perfect, do this but for our product (structure, content amount, etc) Thank you,
On-Page Optimization | | Jamesmcd030 -
Hero Banners & Live Text Q?
Hey Guys N' Girls. What are the benefits of having live selectable text on your home page slider banners? I understand that as live text Google can read the text, so there are keyword and relevancy benefits. But the question is how much impact on ranking this will have? The reason I ask is our website solution can add live text but the fonts are limited to 9 basic fonts. We would like to use more jazzy fonts in the banner, but our only option then is to use a jpeg or png. Thanks for your responses. Owen
On-Page Optimization | | BrunelOne0 -
Outgoing Links Best Practice
Hi, It is my understanding that it is good practice to add relevant out going links to my content pages. I do not intend to over do it and the out going links I intend to add would be useful for the reader. My question is do I need to add noindex/nofollow tags to these links? Does it make any difference either way or can I just leave them as index/follow links? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | UnderMe0 -
Using phrases like 'NO 1' or 'Best' int he title tag
Hi All, Quick question - is it illegal, against any rule etc to use phrases such as 'The No 1 rest of the title tag | Brand Name' on a site?
On-Page Optimization | | Webrevolve0 -
What are the best eCommerce sites from an SEO perspective?
We're working hard on improving our website right now, and would love to get the community's examples of the best eCommerce sites out there, from an SEO and a general customer-centric design perspective...
On-Page Optimization | | reddogmusic0 -
Site Architecture: How do I best Optimize for Similar Keywords?
Hello Moz Community! I'm really struggling trying to decide on an improved site architecture. I run an online proofreading & editing website. This leaves us targeting many different niche keywords. For example: blog editing/proofreading, essay editing/proofreading, book editing/proofreading, resume... you get the point. I feel like editing & proofreading are similar enough to target on the same page(s). However, the issue is that I'm also having to deal with what I'm calling derivative keywords. For example, when I try to optimize for 'essay editing/proofreading', I also have to think about: paper editing, paper editor, paper correction, edit my paper, etc. I would have no problem optimizing the page for 'essay editing' in the title, H1, etc. and then targeting these words as secondary keywords within the body text, etc., however, I keep thinking 'a large slice of a small pie is better than a small slice of a big one.' You see, the keyword 'essay correction' has only about one-third the monthly searches as 'essay editing', but it is 50% less competitive. The same is loosely true for the rest of the 'derivative' keywords. I'd have no problem building specific pages for these derivative keyword groups, however, I'm very concerned how this would effect my site from a user experience perspective. I don't want to have a master "services" page with links to book editing, resume editing, essay editing, etc. and then also show paper editing, essay correction, etc. To me, this would be confusing... "What's the difference between essay editing and paper editing?". Any guidance is much appreciated. This has got my head spinning! Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | TBiz0 -
How to Define Best Structure of Title Tag and Meta Description?
I want to define best structure of Title Tag and Meta Description for my eCommerce website. There are too many categories over there and many be increase in near future. There are 7K+ products live on website so, it's quite hard to develop Title Tag and Meta Description for all product pages. That's why I have set automatic Title Tag and Meta Description creation with help of developers. I want to do similar stuff for my category pages. Can anyone suggest me structure of Title Tag and Meta Description which suppose to help me in well over Google's organic result. I have define structure as follow. Title Tag: Category Name: FREE Shipping & Discount Category Name | Vista Stores Meta Description: Category Name with FREE shipping, 100% price guarantee, Buy and save 20% to 40% on attractive, modern and discount Category Name. Meta Keywords: Category Name I also want to give real time example with specific URL. (http://www.vistastores.com/69_21/outdoor/patio-umbrellas.html) Category Name = Patio Umbrellas so with help of above structure Title Tag and Meta Description will be as follow. Title Tag: Patio Umbrellas: FREE Shipping & Discount Patio Umbrellas | Vista Stores Meta Description: Patio Umbrellas with FREE shipping, 100% price guarantee, Buy and save 20% to 40% on attractive, modern and discount Patio Umbrellas. Meta Keywords: Patio Umbrellas So, Does it matter for good performance? If any inputs in same direction so I am eager to read it.
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
Best Practice for Deleting Pages
What is the best SEO practice for deleting pages? We have a section in our website with Employee bios, and when the employee leaves we need to remove their page. How should we do this?
On-Page Optimization | | Trupanion0