Could we maybe insert a paragraph in white text on a white background?
Search engines long ago discovered the “invisible text” trick and those sorts of SEO workarounds can get your site banned from search indexes, so I recommend you stay away from them. 🙂
The better option is to use an SEO plugin – like WordPress SEO or All in One SEO Pack – to create meta descriptions for your site that search engines may use, though it’s impossible to force a search engine to use any particular piece of text in their search snippets.
If you’re interested in learning more about SEO and how search engines work, here are two sites I recommend:
http://searchenginewatch.com/
http://www.highrankings.com/forum/
Ah I see. I have tried a couple of SEO plugins and they don’t seem to be working that well for me.
In which case, could I insert a tidy paragraph of copy which is readable by users and search engines under the SwimQuest logo on the homepage, describing the site and our offering?
Alice
There isn’t an easy way to add text under the logo, but you could add easily add text using a text widget in the footer.
Would a search engine pick up this text do you know? Otherwise, is it possible to add a box of text about the grid of images on pictorico at all?
Alice
Would a search engine pick up this text do you know?
Yes it would “pick it up” but it’s not possible to force search engines to use it as the search snippet, as I mentioned above. Search engines analyze all elements on a site and its algorithm determines what to display in search results.
Otherwise, is it possible to add a box of text about the grid of images on pictorico at all?
Only if you were to create a child theme and modify the template files.
Here are some guides in case you haven’t made a child theme before:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes
http://op111.net/53/
http://vimeo.com/39023468
You’d probably want to add a new widgetized area to the child theme for that:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Widgetizing_Themes
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-register-new-widget-areas-to-your-wordpress.html