This gets mentioned quite a lot when it comes to on page optimisation, with it often being cited as having a positive impact on search engine rankings.

The idea behind it is that search engines will often put more weight on the features that appear higher up on the page as they are usually more important to the age and are also the first thing the user sees.

This can be seen in other cases, for example, outbound links have been seen to pass on a lot more value when they appear higher up on the page. The reverse is true for footer links tending to pass less value as they are lower down the page.

If you have a lot of content in your header, such as advertising, then it may be worth considering. If your content is so low down in the code that it would take a while to get to it then it may be counted as less important and suffer due to this.

While pushing content higher up on the page can have a small positive affect on rankings, the effect is minimal and it is a case of weighing up the return on investment gained from investing the time needed to correct this.

Time would be far better invested in other on page factors such as clearing out unnecessary code or correcting any 404′s – or some good old fashioned link building.