Bold lead paragraphs?

[WhatsOutThere]

Always when you read a news article, the lead paragraphs are bold. Are there any general rules for this? Currently I have bold lead paragraphs on my blog. It looks pretty in my opinion, but I don't know if it's bad for SEO, for the readers or anything else. I can't find any other blog that does it, though. Why only news sites? Literally can't find any information on this online, so if any one can shed some light that would be appreciated.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

News sites get away with poor onsite sometimes due to the volume of content and the fact that many share their stories.

In general that is a poor way to do onsite SEO as it make it hard for Google to narrow down your specifics as to what you are trying to rank in the search engines.

I'd never do that myself if I was looking to get the majority of my traffic from Google unless I had a site that was shared like a rental car and had content added to it so often that it grew exponentially.

 

[WhatsOutThere]

News sites get away with poor onsite sometimes due to the volume of content and the fact that many share their stories.

In general that is a poor way to do onsite SEO as it make it hard for Google to narrow down your specifics as to what you are trying to rank in the search engines.

I'd never do that myself if I was looking to get the majority of my traffic from Google unless I had a site that was shared like a rental car and had content added to it so often that it grew exponentially.

Thank you. That's reason enough for me to not use bold leads. What about making certain words or short sentences that you want to emphasize bold? Does it matter to SEO at all? For example,

"I do not recommend getting a cheaper one as.."

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Thank you. That's reason enough for me to not use bold leads. What about making certain words or short sentences that you want to emphasize bold? Does it matter to SEO at all? For example,

"I do not recommend getting a cheaper one as.."

I'm big on only bolding that which I want Google to see as the <b> tag makes G look. so, I may bold "Fast Cars" and I want to rank for Cars that Go Fast, Quick Cars, Muscle Cars, Hot Cars, etc but I would not bold a generic term or phrase as that takes the bots eyes from your actual ranking vision.

 

[WhatsOutThere]

I'm big on only bolding that which I want Google to see as the <b> tag makes G look. so, I may bold "Fast Cars" and I want to rank for Cars that Go Fast, Quick Cars, Muscle Cars, Hot Cars, etc but I would not bold a generic term or phrase as that takes the bots eyes from your actual ranking vision.

Very helpful, thank you!

 

[MayhemMarketing007]

I'd rather use headings and use them sparingly, making sure to include your keywords in some of them for SEO purposes. Bold leads are good for news sites, but they don't work too well for sales pages or general blogs. Bad for SEO and might be hard on the eyes too.