Hiding Text in an SEO friendly way - is it possible?

[RichBestSEO]

Hello,

I have a client who has very little (practically no) text content on his ecommerce website, on the home page and category / sub cat pages. We have drafted some text for him - but the designer has fought back against this as he feels it will break the design.

Our proposed solution is to have some text visible - and the rest will be text that is hidden but can be revealed by clicking Read More.

We are planning to follow these recommendations : http://www.shimonsandler.com/collapsible-div-seo-friendly/

We are not hiding text for the sake of it - but more to improve the UX. We of course want the text to be accessible - i.e. readable by screen readers.

Does anyone have any experience or opinions in respect to taking this course of action, and is there anything we should make sure we either do or not do to stay on the side of the BIG G?

Kind Regs,

Rich

[SEO5Team]

Hi Rich,

I think just this one act of hiding text will not get you in trouble however if you combine this with other black hat techniques or your site exhibits spammy behavior then you're definitely in trouble. If one is able to access all the content in a text only browser then you should be ok. I would still try and educate the client on having a small block of introductory text above the product and category pages that would also help with conversions.

Her's the official link on hidden text by Google.

Jill Whalen's forum addresses this question here 

Here's another  link on this topic

[EGOL]

We have drafted some text for him - but the designer has fought back against this as he feels it will break the design.

I would not  be able to have this person as a designer for one of my sites.

This person is not "on board" and I don't have time to pull his teeth.

Nuf said.

[SEO5Team]

:):) well said.

[miketighe]

Just to add to this.

A designers job is to design for content and design to make what they are creating successful.

I would start with informing the designer of the intended goals of the site. Then have a discussion around how they feel the current design they have created is accomplishing that.

If there are any holes in the design accomplishing those goals - then a discussion can take place on how strategy, content and design can come together.

The key is to help your designer understand this and lead the team to success.

If none of that works, talk to the owner and pull rank on the designer. Clients speak and think in terms of results - so make your case.

All you can do is provide thought leadership, fight for what you believe in and don't get pushed around or marginalized for common sense recommendations.

If no one wants to listen, you've just found a client not worth working for.

(But remember, it is your thought leadership and sensitivity to everyone's role that makes or breaks it, whether it be the owner, designer, developer, etc.)

Good luck!

[SaforwebDesign]

Clear and direct. The solution is change the designer.

[Devanur-Rafi]

Hi Rich,

Here you are not hiding anything for the fact. Hiding text is something else that would involve matching the color of the text with that of the background etc. Here you are just tying to make a better UX by having the Read More button that will reveal the content. The content is very much there on the same page and your intention is very clear here. Believe me my friend, Google has mastered the art of finding out the intentions of Webmasters by looking at the page and you will not have to bother about anything in this case.

Regards,

Devanur.

[EGOL]

Michael,

These are very clear steps that could be applied by many people in various situations.

You are a great leader !

Nice work!

E

[RichBestSEO]

Thanks Michael.

I agree completely. We are just trying to find a way to tick both boxes, UX and SEO - both of which, of course, are intricately connected. So an SEO friendly text reveal function seems like a good strategy all round. We are certainly not trying to hide text from users, and include it solely for SE's. I am just keen we do it in a way that is accessible and not in breach of Google's guidelines.

I usually push my opinion through and make sure there is text on the page, even if it looks ugly in a designers opinion. Because, ultimately, a site without traffic is not worth a whole lot, even if it looks amazing!

RB

[RichBestSEO]

This is gold dust - THANK YOU!!