What is above the fold and Below the fold content? SEO 2022

The content visible on the initial load is known as the above-the-fold content. And the remaining content is below the fold content. This article will discuss how Above the Fold content is important for the SEO of the website.

Above the Fold Content.

As already discussed, it is the initial visible part of the document. Don’t get confused between the initial visible and the initial load part of the content, as both are different.

In the above image of desktop view, the initial visible part is Above the Fold, and the rest is Below the Fold. A website has to paint the visible part first for a better user experience.

Why above the fold content is essential?

Google has implemented the core web vitals update as a search engine ranking factor. These core web vitals include Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and First Input Delay.

These core web vitals are all part of the above-the-fold content.

• First Input Delay: It is the initial load from TTFB first to click response time.
• Largest Contentful Paint: Total Time taken to load the largest content of the page.
• Cumulative Layout Shift: Measure the shift in page layout during the load time.

Let’s understand the core web vitals and the initially visible content. If the first input delay is higher, it will take a long time to load the page. This may be due to the loading of below-the-fold content first and then above the Fold. That causes render-blocking. So from here, we can get the answer, why we need to remove render-blocking.

If the largest contentful paint takes a longer time, then the content will not become visible in the first place.

The cumulative layout will be shifted if the content is randomly loaded instead of a proper order from header to footer. If a website’s content loads from header to footer, it will not cause any render-blocking, and Above the Fold, the content will appear very fast. Therefore, the correct use of CSS can minimize the CLS score.

How to load the visible content first?

When the website loads the visible part of the page first, it enhances the website engagement, user experience, and reading time.

For this, a website must load from top to bottom, not randomly load any part instead. You can do this by using an optimized Theme for the website.

Critical CSS should be inlined on the page and optimize the CSS delivery. To perform all these actions for the WordPress website, use a plugin like Autoptimize, W3 Total Cache, WP Fastest Cache, etc.

Conclusion

Blogger users can use a fully optimized theme instead as no plugin feature is available.

From this article, we can understand that Above the Fold is very important for SEO, as it is the base of core web vitals.

I hope this article helped you understand the initial visible content and core web vitals. If you’ve any feedback, doubt, or query, feel free to ask in the comment section provided below.