Published:
Updated:
by Wayne Smith
The first impression a visitor gets when they land on your site is critical. They need to quickly see if the site can help them and decide whether to stay or leave.
The content above the fold promises what they’ll find below the fold. This first impression should match what the visitor is looking for based on their search.
For SEO, "Above the fold" refers to the visible portion of the page without the visitor needing to scroll. One should consider mobile and cell phone devices ... often the above the fold is considered for the desktop view, which is not ideal for on-page optimization.
John Mueller -- Above the Fold
“So the main thing is that we want to see some content above the fold.
Which means… a part of your page should be visible when a user goes there.
So for example if a user goes to your website and they just see a big holiday photo and they have to scroll down a little bit to actually get content about a hotel, then that would be problematic for us.
But if they go to your home page and they see a hall of fame photo on top and also a little bit of information about the hotel, for example for a hotel site, that would be fine.
So it’s not purely that the content has to be above the fold. But… some of the content has to be.”
"Above The Fold" is tenured SEO
Inktomi or Hotbot search engine was the first to implement an "above the fold," algorithm. Using CSS Inktomi determined the actual size of text and what text was above the fold; Added weight to the content and ranked it accordingly.
Until SEO figured out what Inktomi was doing they were at a lose. Believe it or not many sites did not present relevant information on the top of pages for visitors; these sites were buried.
Search engines are less than transparent about how they look at the above-the-fold information. A/B Testing can be done easily for this area of the page. What is presented directly affects user behavior, interactions, and engagement with the content.
It is and will likely remain an SEO Best Practice to optimize the Above the fold content for on-page SEO.
Keywords Above the Fold
It is partially correct that a page is not disqualified by Google if the main keyword is missing from the above-the-fold content.
Unlike previous search algorithms, which would focus on each individual word in the search query, "Hummingbird" considers the context of the different words together, with the goal that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words
Searching for "Do it yourself pizza," versus "pizza recipe," provides the same search results in Google. Yet the pages that are provided don't say, "do it yourself," yet match the meaning.
The evolution from Search Keywords to Search Entities
A MYTH is Google is the only marketing channel or search engine. Hummingbird is exclusive to Google, but SEO is not exclusively for Google.
It helps all search engines and people that the primary keyword appears in the page title, in the main headline, and in the sub-heading text under the main headline. It is ideal if both the headline and sub-heading show above the fold.
The main headline and Lead-In should be engaging
You don't want to stuff keywords into the main headline or lead-in, or use tiny text. Tiny words are not important words for SEO. The primary keyword should be predominantly displayed -- It is best to influence the visitor using the lead-in, to engage with the rest of the page. Below-the-fold H2 or H3 headings can introduce additional search terms. Above the fold is the compelling content for the rest of the page.
Above the Fold -- type of content and user intent
The type of content affects what needs to appear in the above-the-fold content.
A Video Watch Page
For video content, the video needs to show above-the-fold, or rendered HTML as shown in the Google preview. A "Video isn't on a watch page," results when the video is not above the fold.
The "in the rendered HTML," -- Source: Google Webmaster Support
A Call to Action
Call to action includes any action the user is intended to take when landing on the page. For example, downloading a report, Checking shipping status, etc., are called to action.
The call to action button should be visible in the rendered portion of a smartphone without the visitor needing to scroll.
Informational pages
It's best to include the Lead-In, Summary, LEDE or key points (like a TLDR) above-the-fold, where people can see it right away without scrolling. Keep in mind that only about 5% of searches currently get Google's AI-generated summaries, and less than 4% qualify for featured snippets.
FAQ use case
FAQs are a clear user intent signal provided to Google. If the intent of the page is to answer a question, the question should appear above-the-fold, and may be the headline of the page.
Schema is available to signal Google that the intent of the page is to answer the question. Or, Recipe schema is available to signal google that the intent of the page is to answer the question of how to make a food item.
One does not need to, and should not, create different variations of the same question ... The Hummingbird algorithm has that covered.
Some pages may answer a list of questions, it should still be clear when the user lands on the page after asking the question that the page is indeed the correct page with answers.
FAQ below the fold should not removed, they affect relevancy.
Above the Fold for the Home Page - Trust Signals
The H1 tag for the home page is the name of the site or brand. It is the primary keyword for navigational intention searches. It should appear above the fold.
On informational pages, the H1 tag should also be above the fold and contain the primary keyword, and the sub-heading text under the H1 for an informational page should contain the TLDR or LEDE. A Home page lacks a TLDR section.
Trust signals, like your business name, address, and phone number (NAP), should be visible above the fold. Since the homepage often serves as a navigation hub, these trust signals might appear on other pages, with links to "About Us" and "Contact Us" placed above the fold.
Like the main headline for an informational page promises content and answers ... a promise is made for trust signals that the information exists below the fold or on the linked page.
Author Byline and Publish Date Trust Signal
For Authoritative Content, a notable author is a trust signal. It may be a trade secret of Google to understand how their E-E-A-T algorithms qualify certain people for a Google Knowledge Panel. Helping people with SEO is not Google's job, and they can not be completely transparent about their algorithms.
"N.E.E.A.T.T is an extended version of Google’s E.E.A.T. Kalicube created the acronym N.E.E.A.T.T : Notability, Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness and Transparency. Google’s E.A.T.T does not include Notability and Transparency. At Kalicube, we know Notability and Transparency are fundamental to demonstrating E.A.T.T even if Google doesn’t list them explicitly. Why? The humans at Google strive to serve notable and transparent entities in the search results."
Source: Kalicube
For mere mortals, it has little to zero effect on page rank. However, when user profiles are properly linked it does create a topical silo, which can improve rankings ... Not because of experience, expertise, authority, or even trust but because of the flow of page rank through the topical silo. Hint: Page rank doesn't require people actually follow the links, page rank exists because the links exist on qualified pages.
Above-the-fold inclusion of an author byline for a notable author has not been tested ... for mere mortals, it will make the author's name findable in search as a long tail keyword for the content.
Byline Schema, Publish Date Semantics
Images - Above the Fold - Use Case
Google does not obey a request to use a featured thumbnail for a page listing.
Instead, Google considers what it knows about the search intent. Based on the search intent a thumbnail may be used. If Google is using a thumbnail -- having the image above-the-fold may improve rankings.
The image use case, (like the video use case), may be triggered by people using the same search phrase for infographics or product images. It is not a given use case, but Google and other search engines adapt their algorithms to match user intent.
When images are used: Images should be of high quality and a resolution acceptable for usage in Google Discovery (when applicable), and the page headline should not be pushed below the fold.
Images can help in other ways
Beyond the above-the-fold effects for SEO, images can help with user engagement, and trust. Don't create content for search engines, create it for visitors and potential paying customers.
NavBoost adjusts ranking based on user interactions. If Google algorithms don't consider an image above the fold as helpful today, user interactions may affect future updates.
Table of Content - Above the Fold - Use Case
Not every page needs a table of contents. However, pages with multiple subheadings can benefit from having one.
Google will often create jump-to-links featured snippets for content that may benefit from a table of contents.
If Google is creating jump-to-links as a featured snippet for the page, One might consider having a TOC above the fold ... otherwise, it is likely not helpful. Again NavBoost can decide if it is helpful.
Above the fold - Load Speed
A pain point for search engines that facilitated using above-the-fold for ranking is visitors seeing irrelevant content. Another equally painful factor for users to abandon a visit to a site is the perception of poor page speed.
Web vitals is rumored to be a ranking factor? A perfect web vitals score can be achieved by waiting for interaction before downloading the content. The user experience created by doing this is ugly. However, if a perfect score is desired the interaction can be a page scroll. Expect a zero ROI for achieving a perfect web vitals score.
Bounce Rate is a factor of the preception of above-the-fold speed,
not overall page speed or web vitals.
The user's perception of page speed has nearly nothing in common with Google's Web Vitals; And, it is not based on the actual time a page takes to load.
Web vitals can show a page with poor performance as very good in web vitals and a page with a good user perception as poor.
The user's interest is how long they need to wait before they can interact with the content and can be broken down into two categories:
1> How long before the content (above the fold) stops shifting as the page loads? Addressable by CSS.
2> How long time before they can interact with the page? Addressable by fetching additional resources off the main thread.
The first concern can be addressed by using on-page CSS for the above-the-fold content and an external CSS file for the rest of the page when the amount of materials needed to create the page becomes excessive.
Doing on-page CSS is not a web vitals factor.
The second concern can be addressed by prioritizing the loading of above-the-fold content and lazy loading the content for the rest of the page. To improve the wait time for interaction, ensure that downloading does not block the main thread. IE a fetch promise, but web vitals may show a worse score.
Incomplete page loads found in logs should be flagged as critical.
Below the fold SEO
The user's question, or the search intent, must be answered on the page.
In addition, the page as a whole needs to be relevant to the topic or primary keyword. Additional sub-headlines with related terms aid semantically associated algorithms. Related entities and keyword density also aid search engines in determining the terms the page is relevant to.