How important is the HTML structure for on-page/on-site SEO?
-
To be more specific, say a page layout has Header, Body, Left Sidebar, Footer sections. Which layout from the following options is more SEO-friendly?
- Header > Body > Right Sidebar > Footer
- Body > Header > Right Sidebar > Footer
Does it make a big difference to code HTML so that the the copy of the body appears in front of all other sections when spiders crawl a website? Is it worth taking extra steps to make this happen?
I am asking this question because our site has a header navigation with a lot of dropdown menus. So I assume that this is "noise" for spiders as it pushes the main content of the page down.
Please bear in mind that the question is more geared towards how search engine see the page rather than how it appears to the end user as layout can be controlled by CSS.This question also assumes that all other on-site SEO best practices are followed for both options.
-
I agree with the other answers, but believe 100% your header should be above body content. The way I explain it to my clients is the header is a promise of what is to come. You wouldn't pick up a book without reading the title would you? Or know if it is in your own language?
The header is also the position to tell the SERP's what your entire site is about, look this site is about "such and such" with the "author tag so and so", written to answer "these questions" and you will find ALL that and more in the content.
Body above the header was a trick used years ago in SEO to force feed our intentions on the search engine, now we just politely introduce our page and let them browse the content.
-
Hi,
As irving mentioned in his answer, Google does crawl the whole page. However, from a HTML5 course I took, Google reads the HTML from top to bottom. Meaning if you have 1. Head > Body >Right Sidebar > Footer, Google will read your head first, then the body, then the right side bar and finally footer. If you have 2. Body > Header > Right Sidebar > Footer, they will read Header first. You get the point.
Therefore, it is suggested to have your more important content on the top of the HTML. But overall, Google will crawl the whole page.
-
Google reads the whole page, but it is said to put your content as high up in the code as possible. So if your header is a huge chunk of code, then putting the body above it sounds like a good idea.
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
-
Too many SEO changes needed on a page. Create a new page?
I've been doing some research on a keyword with Page Optimization. I'm finding there's a lot of changes suggested. I'm wondering that because of the amount of changes required is it better to create a new page entirely from scratch that has all the suggestions implemented OR change the current page? Thanks, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris29181 -
Keyword stuffing on category pages - eCommerce site
Hi there fellow Mozzers. I work for a wine company, and I have a theory that some of our category pages are not ranking as well as they could, due to keyword stuffing. The best example is our Champagne category page, which we are trying to rank for the keyword Champagne, currently rank 6ish. However, when I load the page into Moz, it tells me that I might be stuffing, which I am not, BUT my products might be giving both Moz and Google this impression as well. Our product names for any given Champagne is "Champagne - {name}" and the producer is "Champagne {producer name}. Now, on the category pages we have a list of Champagnes, actually 44 Which means that with the way we display them, with both name of the wine, the name of the producer AND the district. That means we have 132 mentions of the word "Champagne" + the content text that I have written. I am wondering, how good is Google at identifying that this is in fact not stuffing, but rather functionality that makes for this high density of the keyword? Is there anything I can do? I mean, we can change it so it's not listed with Champagne on all the products, but I believe it would make the usability suffer a bit, not a lot - but it's a question of balance and I would like to hear if anyone has encountered a similar problem, if it is in fact a problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nikolaj-Landrock2 -
Tool to help find blog / news pages?
Do you guys know of any tools where if I have a list of Url's it can help find blog and news pages and let me know which ones have these.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Do Page Anchors Affect SEO?
Hi everyone, I've been researching for the past hour and I cannot find a definitive answer anywhere! Can someone tell me if page anchors affect SEO at all? I have a client that has 9 page anchors on one landing page on their website - which means if you were to scroll through their website, the page is really really long! I always thought that by using page anchors instead of sending users through to a dedicated landing page, ranking for those keywords makes it harder because a search spider will read all the content on that landing page and not know how to rank for individual keywords? Am I wrong? The client in particular sells furniture, so on their landing page they have page anchors that jump the user down to "tables" or "chairs" or "lighting" for example. You can then click on one of the product images listed in that section of the page anchor and go through to an individual product page. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz1 -
Domain.com/keyword1.keyword2.html vs doamin.com/keyword1-keyword2.html
I was doing some research and saw this url structure in a website that was not ranking well and can't help but wonder was the url structure part of the problem as well it looks like this with a period between keywords. domain.com/keyword1.keyword2.html and was wondering if that is acceptable for search engines as opposed to the normal dashes like this expample ... domain.com/keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.html I have never noticed a period to separate words in a url before. Anyone have any experience with this ? Is this going to hurt possible rankings ? Thank you in advance, Joe
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jlane91 -
Best set up for mobile site for SEO
Hello Does anyone have any input into what is the best way to have a mobile website URL structure for not responsive display sites. mobile.site.com www.site.com/m/ or neither have it just display on the same URL. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | christaylorconsulting0 -
Are Silos Still Important for SEO?
I am in the process of migrating www.nyc-officespace-leader.com from Drupal to Wordpress and my developer is of the opinion that it is not necessary to implement silos to achieve favorable ranking for competitive keywords. I know a lot has changed in the last two years with Panda and Penguin. Is it SEO best practices to implement silos in the course of the redesign? Will this make a significant difference for SEO? Thanks, Alan Rosinsky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Any SEO suggestions for my site?
Site in question: http://bit.ly/Lcspfp Does anyone have any suggestions for any on-site SEO that would benefit my website? Any recommendations, big or small are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichardTaylor1