Are You Screaming At The Search Engines?
If you’ve ever been to a sporting event you know there are two types of fans you will always come across; the occasional heckler who has random outbursts about bad calls, poor team performance, and points earned by the opposing team, and you have the guy in back screaming at every possible moment. Both types of fans usually get your attention, but the obnoxious screamer in the back stands out the most, and even though you continue to hear him you stop paying attention to his message and eventually tune out what he is saying altogether.
This same scenario can be applied to your website, where the search engines become the observer, your site becomes one of the two types of fans, and the use of bold tag translates into the screaming. With that in mind, is your site the occasional heckler who’s comments are easily picked up on, or is it the obnoxious screamer who’s message is lost in the roar of the crowd?
The bold and italic attributes work on websites the same way they would in a print document. They are used to put emphasis on a word or sentence so that it stands out to the reader. However, I am noticing more and more that websites are using the bold and italic attributes as part of their design. Instead of adding emphasis to a word or a sentence, it appears that they are giving emphasis to whole paragraphs or even whole pages. Sadly, by bolding or italicizing whole blocks of content the search engines are not able to identify the true emphasis, and like the obnoxious heckler your message is lost.
By properly using these font attributes you can turn your site into the occasional heckler whose message is heard loud and clear each time and whose message stands out. Bolding things like keywords and calls to action make information not only stand out for the search engines, but also your visitors. Not to mention it tells the search engines that these certain words or topics are important to you and your site.
Many will argue that they bold all of their text because if they don’t bold it, it is too hard to read against their background. To them I say it’s time to change your background. If your background and font color contrast so much that the text cannot be read in a normal font then it probably isn’t a solid choice for a background color.
So as we wrap up this year’s basketball and hockey seasons and transition into baseball season you have to ask yourself; is my site going to continue being the obnoxious loudmouth or can I tone it down to be the occasional heckler?
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