Question about CSS on my site.

Here's a question that I'm hoping a CSS guru can assist me with...I have a site that uses a CSS template that I downloaded from a free site. It has a left hand side bar area, body, and footer as most do. When I do a google search and my site is listed in the results, google is pulling content from my sidebar instead of the body area of my site. I don't know if this makes sense. How can i make change the css so that the information in the body of my site, where all my content is, will be what Google sees for it's search results...here's what i mean;

School Loan Consolidation | Information and Resources
Current Loan Rates. Stafford Loan ............ 6.80%* PLUS Loan ................ 8.50%* Loan Consolidation ..... 6.375%*. *subject to change ...
www.schoolloaninfo.com/ - 7k - 17 hours ago - Cached - Similar pages -

The information that is red is what google is thinking is the site content, but that's just in the side box area....I hope I've explained this correctly. Any help is appreciated as usual.

 

The problem is how your page is layed out in the HTML code.

Your page should be layed out like :

-header-
-main body-
-menu-
-footer-

right now you're :

-left menu-
-main content-
-footer-

All that needs to change is how the code lays in the page NOT the actual layout.

I hope this makes sense.

 

Ok...so i can just change the order of the layout in the default.css file correct. This won't affect how the actual page behaves?

 

It's hard to explain. Not the CSS in the CSS file but the HTML code in the index file. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that's the problem. Google runs across the left sidebar first and assumes it's site content.

What would really make the difference is if you added something to the description meta tag.

 

Ok gotcha....thanks for noticing the description meta tag...it was there yesterday but I made some changes and it must have been deleted. I'll replace that asap...

I'll mess with the layout and see if I can get the body ahead of the left sidebar. Thanks for the info...rep added.

 

NP, do the meta thing before messing w/your code. That missing tag is most likely the problem.

 

I did both actually, and I'm hoping that should take care of it....there's no way I'm going to let google use my damn sidebar menu as the content of my site...thanks again.

 

First off, you're using tables for your layout, which is going to limit your options of where your content can go as far as the source code order is concerned. You should be using semantic markup for this instead, along with proper source code order (header, menu, content, sidebar - if needed, footer). Some people will try to claim that the content must come first for SEO, but it's just a myth - the benefits gained will be minimal at best, and can actually hurt your site, especially if you have a lot of content before that menu (remember, a search engine spider is like any other user, it will not always enter your site via the home page; if the first page has a lot of content for it to spider, and it can't get to all of it, it'll never find your menu).

As it is, I'm noticing a lack of strong keywords on your site, with the exception of the menu, and your content is pretty weak as well, which leads me to believe that Google thinks the strong keywords in your menu are actually the most relevant content on the page. You also appear to be repeating some certain keywords a bit too much in prominent locations, such as your headings, which is not a good idea. Try spreading the keyword love around with some better content that people will actually find useful, rather than turning your Web site into a one-trick keyword/phrase pony.

I will however, second the earlier suggestion to use a strong meta description in your header. Google and other search engines will use this to provide an overview of what the page is about if they cannot find text that they feel is more relevant to what the user is searching for in their results pages.

Actually, it shouldn't follow that model. As I said above, the proper order for page elements is the header, menu, content, sidebar (if needed), and footer. Not only does this help the search engines since they can get to the other pages quickly (especially if the pages have a lot of content on them), but it also allows the site to be easier to use for mobile users, people using text-based browsers such as Lynx, and those using assistive devices such as screen readers (for the best accessibility results, include appropriate skip links where needed as well).

 

Thanks for the tips Dan. The site has only been live for a couple of days, and I still have content to add. Obviously I'm going after School loan consolidation as my main keyword phrase, but I have more content to add, so it's a work in progress.

I know CSS isn't new, but I'm a CSS newbie and I've always used tables which I know is a no no with css. I'll experiment with it and move some keywords around. I'm open to any suggestions that you think would be good content additions.

 

It's only when tables are used for layout that people like me start griping - unless the layout itself is tabular in nature (weird, but I have seen times where it's appropriate).

If you want to learn more about CSS, you might want to look into getting "HTML Utopia" from SitePoint.com (in the books section).