I use the <strong> tag a lot in my articles to highlight important words and headings, and I don't use the headings as much anymore. Does Google count anything inside <strong> or <span> tags as more important than other content, similar to how <h2> and <h3> content is ranked?
No. Strong tag may used for the purpose of visibility and nothing more. The H1, H2 and H3 tags are given considered for SEO process.
I have no proof that keywords in <strong> tags help with SEO, but I have seen pages on my sites where I use the <strong> tag, rank well for terms I have included in the <strong> tags. I haven't done a full analysis and tested this for sure, but my hunch is that it can help when used sporadically Mark
Correct. There is some tiny amount of extra weight given to both <strong> and <b>... But <title>, <h1>, <h2>, etc. are given more weight. Personally, I almost never use <b> or <strong> except to point out possibly a word I'm about to define - maybe at most once or twice per page. But on 99% of my pages I never use it all. I think sites that have content riddled with words that are bolded and/or a different color than the rest of the surronding content look cheap, spammy. And I immediately hit the backbutton when I land on such a page.
Just the same as bolding, but I see alot of sites use this, its just another thing you can try and use I guess.. Their is really not "right" or "wrong" answer to tell you if this is correct or not.
Yes and no, like others have said it is similar to bold and can be treated along with the italicize feature as meaningful, but only when used correctly.
Well I know that to my reader's it will stand out, as the text will be darker and more bold than the other text around it. However I'm looking at my posts strictly from an SEO standpoint, where I want the text inside of my <strong> tags to be considered ranked higher and those keywords should appear higher in Google searches. Or at least, I'm hoping they do
Emm, thats because you are a SEO. I bet (hey now, its a small bet ) you don't even click on interesting AdSense ads that you might see on other sites. But however before people would start thinking SEO emphasizing a phrase that should "make a point" is nothing cheap nor spammy...where there is no tone to clarify a point (i.e. when we are writing) writers replace that tone by capitalizing or even making it bold to stand out (it actually does make sense, even tho the weight on SEO an emphasized phrase/word would have is not something I would really know..). My advise would be to not emphasized (i.e. bold, italicize etc) a text unless you really have to or you really want to point out something in the phrase you wrote. Just my 2 cents..
Strong tags give more visibility wherever u use it....in seo point of view it doesn't give u any weight age. But Header tags give weight ages as SEO point of view.H1 tag has the highest weight ages as compared to other header tags
I think there is a tiny amount of weightage associated with using <strong> or <b> tags inside content but definitely not much enough to matter. Instead of this you can use the keyword phrases you want to appear ranked higher for, in the h2 or h3 tags.
I really like the way Overstock uses <strong> tags in their footer SEO copy. They use CSS to blend it in with the other content but have a look at the source. Never name your class or ID "SEO".