Hidden headings for nav bars

Useful for screen readers. Bad for SEO?

[kiwibrit]

I am testing out skip links, and I am thinking of hidden <h2> headings to help screen readers differentiate between main nav bars (across the top) and local navigation bars (down the side). Also, I like the local navigation menus to be on the left hand side of the page. On the home page, I would like to pop a snippet called "Worth a look" below the menu. It seems sense to put "Worth a look" inside a <h2> heading. Visually, all this is fine. But it does mean that a series of <h2> appears before <h1>.

Looks like this is not a good idea [webmasterworld.com].

I can bin "Worth a look". But a screen reader user has told me that the <h2> headings for the navbars are useful. Is there an alternative to using <h2> which screen readers will pick up meaningfully?

[encyclo]

I think your plan sounds perfectly reasonable.

<h[i]x[/i]>

elements are an indication of importance, and whilst in most cases you could argue that you find the most important content first, there are always exceptions. As you said, in your case you have decided to place your navigation before the primary content, so the most important headline will naturally follow after the headings for your navigation sections.

I would certainly go for it - you are doing what is right for the user, and the possibility that simply placing a

h2

before a

h1

will impact your rankings is minimal to non-existent.

[kiwibrit]

I am a bit twitchy about it. These days we come up on page 1 of Google. I guess I can run with it, but kill the <h2>s if Google performance drops.

Thanks for coming back to me.