Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
H1 tag- on home page - what is it best to include
is it best to have in the H1 tag 1. just our website address 2. combination of website address followed by short keywords about our website
On-Page Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
Exact keyword match for meta title and h1 what is best practice?
How exact should my meta titles and H1 one be compare to the keyword you wish to rank on. Eksample. When I do a research with google AdWords the keyword tool shows me: 260 monthly searches for house for rent Hua Hin 140 monthly searches for Hua Hin house for rent 70 monthly searches for House for rent in Hua Hin The first two includes the exact same 5 words while the last one includes the stopword "in". That google have different search volumens for these very smilair search queries tells me that small differences matters. So how does that effect the way i shoulf write my: a)meta titles b)H1 I feel I get better sentences often by reordering the keywords etc. “Top tips on how to rent house in Hua Hin” Instead of “Top tips if you want a house for rent in Hua Hin” Do you use stop words like “in” hua hin. (only used in 25% of the searches queries)? Also would it matter if i write a plural form of a keyword instead of a singular etc propeties and sted of property? My goal is to write easy to read and unique content but i feel i can make exact matches if required with out compromising to much.
On-Page Optimization | | nm19770 -
How "Top" or "Best" are considered when in front of keyword
I would like to know if someone has proven info how google today counts words "Top" or "Best" when in front of main keywords you try to rank for. For example, if I have a keyword like "Restaurants in Madrid" and I optimize that page without using words "top" or "best" will it have good rankings for keywords "top restaurants in madrid" and "best restaurants in madrid" ? I suppose that google is smart enough to know that web page should be good ranked even without using those 2 words but would like to know percentage of my loss if I just exclude those words from title tag and other important onpage factors. I want to rank high for all the 3 combinations, with "top", with "best" and without it in front so searching for best solution. I plan just to add one of those words, for example "top" and hope that google will know that "top" = "best" 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | m2webs0 -
Best way to separate blogs, media coverage, and press releases on WordPress?
I'm curious what some of your thoughts are on the best way to handle the separation of blog posts, from press releases stories, from media coverage. With 1 WordPress installation, we're obviously utilizing the Posts for these types of content. It seems obvious to put press releases into a "press release" category and media coverage into a "media coverage" category.... but then what about blog posts? We could put blog posts into a "blog" category, but I hate that. And what about actual blog categories? I tried making sub-categories for the blog category which seemed like it was going to work, until the breadcrumbs looked all crazy. Example: Homepage > Blog > Blog > Sub-Category Homepage = http://www.example.com First 'Blog' = http://www.example.com/blog Second 'Blog' = http://www.example.com/category/blog Sub-Category = http://www.example.com/category/blog/sub-category This just doesn't seem very clean and I feel like there has to be a better solution to this. What about post types? I've never really worked with them. Is that the solution to my woes? All suggestions are welcome! EDIT: I should add that we would like the URL to contain /blog/ for blog posts /media-coverage/ for media coverage, and /press-releases/ for press releases. For blog posts, we don't want the sub-category to be in the URL.
On-Page Optimization | | Philip-DiPatrizio0 -
What is the best way to execute a geo redirect?
Based on what I've read, it seems like everyone agrees an IP-based, server side redirect is fine for SEO if you have content that is "geo" in nature. What I don't understand is how to actually do this. It seems like after a bit of research there are 3 options: You can do a 301 which it seems like most sites do, but that basically means if google crawls you in different US areas (which it may or may not) it essentially thinks you have multiple homepages. Does google only crawl from SF-based IPs? 302 passes no juice, so probably don't want to do that. Yelp does a 303 redirect, which it seems like nobody else does, but Yelp is obviously very SEO-savvy. Is this perhaps a better way that solves for the above issues? Thoughts on what is best approach here?
On-Page Optimization | | jcgoodrich0 -
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 -
Wordpress & trailing slash on domain name
Hi recently changed my site so it is based on Wordpress, got my preferred domain set in Google webmaster as www.domian.co.uk but since moving to wordpress my domain is now having a slash put on the end of it like www.domain.co.uk/ Most of the links going to my homepage do not have the slash on the end so am I right in thinking I should get rid of the slash from my site so I have one consistent url? If so any ideas how to banish the slash? Cannot seem to do it through the Wordpress general settings (despite preferred domain being set as www.domain.co.uk !) Thanks T
On-Page Optimization | | Jon-C0 -
Changing Link Title Tags & Backlinks
On 4/19/12 I began changing the link title tags in an effort to further optimize my website. I thought they were excessively long and it would be beneficial to make them more concise. On 4/26/12 my website traffic began to fall drastically and I'm not sure if it is from google's penguin update or from changing the link title tags. I started looking into the sudden drop of traffic and realized that when I run the site explorer tool on all of the pages I changed, the URL is redirecting. It appears that the backlinks are not passing through to the new URL. Before I Changed the Link Title Tag: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.beautystoponline.com%2FAndis-Professional-Hair-Clippers-s%2F102150.htm **After I Changed the Link Title Tag: ** http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.beautystoponline.com%2FAndis-Clippers-s%2F102150.htm So my questions are: The above example shows that the old title tag (www.beautystoponline.com/Andis-Professional-Hair-Clippers-s/102150.htm) has 43 backlinks and the new one (www.beautystoponline.com/Andis-Professiona-Hair-Clippers-s/102150.htm) has 0. Will the links eventually be attributed to the new URL. I understand that the user will still be directed to my website they click the any of the backlinks, but will the link juice pointing the old URL pass through the new one? Would it be better, in the long run, to continue optimizing the link title tags.
On-Page Optimization | | BeautyStop0