Google advise to put ‘unique’ web content ‘above the fold’. What does this mean for you?
In a recent interview, Google’s search advocate John Mueller took part in a recent interview where he advised content to be placed ‘above the fold’.
This blog post will highlight what exactly this means and how it affects SEO.
What does ‘above the fold’ mean?
Above the fold refers to the content that users see as soon as they load up a page without scrolling down.
It is important as it’s the first impression of a site that a visitor has, so it needs to count!
What is ‘unique’ content?
Mueller has stated that websites should have a minimum amount of content above the fold.
He has stated that some elements such as headers and banners, will always be on your site, so it’s unrealistic for this to be the case on every page, but you should aim to have something visible that is unique.
It is important to ensure that you balance site-wide content with unique content that is not present on multiple pages across the website.
The following quote from John Mueller goes into this further:
“The important part for us is really that there is some amount of unique content in the above the fold area. So, if you have a banner on top, and you have a generic hero image on top, that’s totally fine. But some of the above the fold content should be unique for that page.”
And that could be something like a heading that’s visible in a minimum case. But at least some of the above the fold content should be unique. So that’s kind of the guidance that we have in that regard.”
What happens if I am unable to add unique content?
If you are unable to add unique content, maybe because of design choices, you should aim to include something that could at least improve the site from an SEO perspective (such as key terms).
What would the impact be on a site if this is not done?
If there is no unique content on your site, this may affect the ranking position of your website on Google search results, meaning that it appears lower down the list and will not be as visible.
What happens if visitors may not find the unique content engaging?
Even if Google may rank your page higher because of the unique content, it may not appeal to visitors.
It is important to also take this into consideration and test this – as visitors may click off the site when they view it for the first time.
Mueller’s offers his thoughts further on this topic:
“It’s probably also something where you want to look at how users interact with those pages afterwards. But that’s kind of more from a non-SEO perspective. It’s always, I think, important for cases like that you take a look at see what actually happens with the users afterwards.”
Read more about this
If you would like to learn more about what John Mueller has revelated, you can see this here.
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