How important is it to SEO to have the spiders read your main content first before reading your navigation menu? What would be the easiest way to achieve this?
With this tool you can get an idea how spiders read the site. It goes from the up-left to the down-right. The page in the eyes of a spider: http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php You might also be interested in online spidertest.
Thanks, but maybe I should have rephrased my question a bit differently. I was wondering whats the easiest way to get the content read before the navigation bar, if the navigation bar is on the left side of the page? I've heard of doing it with CSS and divs.
http://cafe.elharo.com/web/css-tip-1-put-the-content-first/ http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=13797&highlight= http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_11_skipping_over_navigation_links.html
There is no reason that this should be important for SEO. Dont waste your time, I would concentrate on important issues if I was you.
"Content First SEO" (in this regard) is a myth. Not only will the benefits gained be minimal at best, but it's also bad for the usability and accessibility of the site, and if one of the pages happens to have so much content that it cannot all be indexed coming before the menu, and the search engine spider happens to notice that page first (remember, a spider, just like a regular user, can and will enter your site from any page, not just the home page), you'll find yourself up the proverbial creek without the paddle.