Is Having Content 'Above The Fold' Still Relevant for Website Design and SEO
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Hey there,
So I have a client who recently 're-skinned' their website and now there is little to no content above the fold. Likewise, I've noticed that since the transition to this new front-end design there has been a drop in rankings for a number of keywords related to one of the topics we are targeting.
Is there any correlation here? Is having content 'above the fold' still a relevant factor in determining a websites' searchability? I appreciate you reading and look forward to hearing from all of you. Have a great day!
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Above the fold my site always has a title that perfectly matches the query, a seductive subtitle that I hope will elicit reading, a spectacular image that I am willing to spend big bucks for, and a carefully crafted opening paragraph that states the basics of the topic.
What else is above the fold? Not much, just my domain name, which is killer. The page looks like a newspaper with the full intent that nothing else will detract from the content or the domain (there are a couple of visible ads that do not interfere with the content - that pay for this stuff).
I know for a fact that having your relevant content above the fold is essential. Someone once designed me a fantastic template and the image at the top was killer killer killer... it was spectacular but irrelevant for most pages of the site. Visitors bounced and I had enough traffic at the time to know that it tanked within a couple hours. Ad revenue sucked too.
I removed that image and the only thing left above the fold was the domain, the titles, the image and the text (and a couple ads that interfere with nothing). In the next 60 minutes the people started exploring the site and the ad revenue was up multiples.
It's like some athletic events... run as close to naked as you can.
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Unfortunately, there is actually a correlation there--Google wants the content above the fold, and so do users. You shouldn't have to scroll to see the site's main content. Google's Page Layout algorithm has been around for several years now, and we've seen time and time again over the past few years that it pays to have your content above the fold.
To look into this further, I would study Google's Page Layout algorithm, and the penalties associated with it.
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