When writing content for your website pages or blog, there’s a lot to consider. Especially today, when high quality, informative and useful content is the starting point, you’ll want to know how each element on your page could be affecting your SEO, both positively and negatively. In this article, we’ll take a look at accordions as a way of organising page content, answering the question; are accordions bad for SEO?
What is an Accordion?
Well, aside from being a musical instrument, the name also has a use in website design. The name of the element does come from the instrument, as an accordion is a section on a web page that functions to expand or shrink as titles or tabs are clicked. The accordion serves to hide content until clicked in most cases, helping to organise content and save page space.
You’ll see below we have added a basic accordion for the purpose of displaying frequently asked questions. Clicking the title will expand the section below to reveal further text explanation.
Example FAQ Accordion (click to expand)
FAQ 1
FAQ2
FAQ3
What are typical uses of an accordion in web design?
Typically, accordions in web design are used to hide information that isn’t as important than other text on the page. This might be used for a FAQ section or further information on a product or service. A good example would be specifications or reviews for a product.
Can Google Crawl Accordion Content?
Yes, Google is able to crawl accordions or content within tabs on your page. The search engine therefore considers the content as it would for any other part of a web page for the purpose of ranking in organic search.
Are Accordions Bad for SEO?
Simply having and using accordions will not directly affect SEO. However, it’s worth considering the user experience and deciding which sections of your content are most important to show to the user. Having numerous accordions or tabbed content may be frustrating to navigate and use, causing a user to return to the search results to find a better source of information.
It was confirmed by Google in 2020 that content that can be read by humans, can also be read by Google’s crawlers. This also applies to mobile devices, which now account for the majority of web searches.
Conclusion
Accordions can be used on a website as necessary, but it’s worth considering the value they are adding. If an accordion is used to hide additional text, rather than important main text content, then it’s fairly safe to say that accordions are not bad for SEO. But, consider your user and use accordions sparingly and sensibly to maintain a quality user experience.
