Creating dropdown that will not be used by Google

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Brewhaus
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Creating dropdown that will not be used by Google

Post by Brewhaus » Fri Dec 06, 2013 1:53 pm

As I dive more into the SEO side of things I have found that the layout is not exactly perfect for SEO. AC is very good with the SEO options, for the most part, but because of the order that things get written in the page (header, then left sidebar, then body) it is extremely difficult to make sure that your keyword(s) for the page appear very near the top of the viewable text, and that is apparently a big deal with Google (not make or break, but you need every edge that you can get). The keyword(s) should also be near the end of the page, which can usually be done by tweaking the last one or two product summaries.

I have a couple of ideas on how to get the keywords near the start of the text, but would need help on implementation.

1) I think that the simplest option would likely to be including a "You are Here" at the top of the left sidebar, and beneath that have the page title. You then just need to make sure that your keywords are in your title. This may look a little sloppy, though, if you are optimizing a page for multiple keywords

2) Replace the category list with a mouseover dropdown list. We already use a dropdown list, but it is read by Google and eats up those all important first 25 words. Although it would take a little bit of work by manually entering the categories (and sub-categories, if you wanted to), that would only need to be adjusted if you add or remove a category. So, once implemented, it would not require any real maintenance.

I tried to create a dropdown list, but to no avail (crashed the page). Can anyone help with this? The other advantage to replacing the stock category list is that you can create more descript category names, maybe use a graphic for the heading, etc., which can help avoid looking 'cookie-cutter'.
Rick Morris
Brewhaus (America) Inc.
Hot Sauce Depot

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