topr8 - 1:08 pm on Dec 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

google reads the page from top to bottom of the code (although supposedly there is a move towards 'looking' at the page layout and considering that too.

you need to look into absolute positioning in order to write the content before the nav area in the code.
alternatively use the html5 <nav> to designate a nav area, i imagine google will take it into consideration at some point soon if they are not already - in any case it does no harm to use it