How Important Is First Sentence Of A Page?, I have a site menu in the way. Options

[excel30]

Hi,

How important is it that keywords appear in the first sentence of a page?

The problem I have is I have a left hand site menu, and thats basically always read by the search engines before my first paragraphs of content. So keywords aren't always going to be in the first sentence because they dont appear in the site menu.

Also, another potential problem,,,,if I use a software tool that analazyes the first sentenance of sites compared to my own, I'm being told my whole site menu is the first sentence,
e.g

Home Forum Blog Articles Newletter Site Map Contact (and alot more).

If I put a full stop after one of the words it doesn't make any difference.

Is this affecting every page of my site as essentially to the search engines every first sentence will appear the same. Also the keywords of the content page aren't in the first sentence.

Thanks in advance for any comments on this aspect.

[jehochman]

You and 80% of the sites out there have a menu first. The SEs can figure out what's a menu and what's content. Don't worry about this. The only annoyance of having the menu first is that a mobile user with a small screen has to scroll through it. I've experimented with coding menus first and last (using absolute positioning) and haven't seen any big difference.

A good idea: work some keywords into your menu. Keywords in links work well.

[St0n3y]

I had a client that was getting a snippet from the page in the search results that he didn't like because it was part of a testimonial, which was in the main navigation panel. To correct the bad snippet he added some text above the testimonial using the keywords. He now has a better snippet being shown. Adding keywords to the nav all depends on what you want to achieve. If your page is ranking poorly and you think adding relevant keywords properly into the navigation will help, then do so. If you simply are worried that the search engines read your navigation first, then that's not something to worry about too much at all. Like Jonathan said, it never hurts to work keywords into the menu in an appropriate way.

[Karri]

From both usability and marketing perspectives I would say that it's hyper important to have a compelling, relevant first sentence. People skim web pages in an F-pattern so that first line is almost always the first thing they look at.

Now, this might be taking too much interpretive license with the algos, but if search engines are programmed to behave like users ...

Karri

[torka]

Absolutely important from a user standpoint.

Human visitors scan, so the "F" pattern eye tracking heatmap would certainly be relevant and something you'd want to pay attention to, both from a copywriting and a visual design aspect.

The difference with SE spiders is that they don't scan. They "read" Every Single Word on the page. So for them, there are no "eye tracking" issues you have to worry about. Human users might miss an important point that's below the fold or in a "cold" spot on the heatmap. Spiders will not.

I don't believe the SEs assign any additional weight to the first sentence of the page, whether you're talking about what displays at the top of the page or what shows up first in your code (which may or may not be the same thing).

My (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/penny.gif)

--Torka (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[Karri]

That makes total sense Torka. I was just wondering if the algorithms might take into account somehow the weightiness of that all-important first line of text. But then again, that would hinder a lot of sites that use table based layout as various other text would arguably get spidered before the first actual line of copy.

Was just pondering this for fun (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) (My brand of "fun" is probably dissimilar to most. LOL).

Karri

[linux_lover]

I just modified my site structure to use absolute positioning - with that I placed my text before my menus in the code. Its not only great for search engines, its also great for accessibility.

I found google was indexing my menus in the page description snippet (as I didnt have a meta description set) so I thought I would do something about it...

[jehochman]

If you are getting bad snippets, a meta description is the perfect solution. Some successful SEOs claim that absolute positioning and code order make a big difference, but I think this could be a myth. I've gotten the same good rankings with and without this technique, so I think it's not an SEO issue.

[St0n3y]

Using a meta description doesn't always cure bad snippet syndrome (BSS?), but its good to implement them anyway. Better to have it and not need it than ... well, you know the rest.

[linux_lover]

If you are getting bad snippets, a meta description is the perfect solution.  Some successful SEOs claim that absolute positioning and code order make a big difference, but I think this could be a myth.  I've gotten the same good rankings with and without this technique, so I think it's not an SEO issue.

Google has reindexed (some) of my pages and it seems to have worked well. Only problem I have is my home page thats using the description from DMOZ for some reason :S. I think I read somewhere that you can use a meta tag to prevent that... probably on this forum somewhere.

What I do have a problem with is google having lots of old pages in its index and refusing to let go (talking about 3 years ago!). Though anything important is redirected.

[torka]

Only problem I have is my home page thats using the description from DMOZ for some reason :S. I think I read somewhere that you can use a meta tag to prevent that... probably on this forum somewhere.

Lilo, try this thread. Same META works for MSN and Google. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup1.gif)

--Torka (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[linux_lover]

Lilo, try this thread. Same META works for MSN and Google. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup1.gif)

--Torka (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

Thanks Torka (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Jill]

How important is it that keywords appear in the first sentence of a page?

In terms of rankings, it's not at all important.