SEO Tips and Tactics – Code to Text Ratio?
The other day we started talking a little about text to code ratios. That’s the correct way to state it. However, many people, and a large number of sites refer to it as a text to code ratio. I’ve even fallen victim to the incorrect nature of the phrase and have been known to talk about code to text ratios because the phrase is used so often. If you think about the ratio itself though, it’s really not a code to text ratio. It’s a text to code ratio. Symantics aside, let’s talk about a few ways to increase your text to code ratio (or code to text ratio if you prefer.)
First of all, the goal is to have lots of content compared to the amount of code required to create it. Look at it this way. Try to have more content than code. That will automatically yield a high text to code ratio.
So how do you do that? Here are a couple ways.
Write tons of content. Simple as that. Make pages with more than a thousand words and your text to code ratio will likely be pretty high. However, poorly programmed pages just generate more code to format more content and it’s a never ending cycle of adding more code and more content so the ratio never climbs.
To increase the text to code ratio, use CSS to write you pages. CSS is so clean that the pages naturally create high text to code ratios. But I’m not just talking about using CSS to define your font styles. You have to use it to lay out the whole page.
Limit your use of large scripts. If you use things like javascript drop down menus, you’re likely adding hundreds of lines of extra code into your pages. It’s still okay to use javascripts, but you have to externalize the scripts themselves. Just save the javascript into a file all by itself and reference the script in your page. That way, the hundreds of lines of code are not calculated into the text to code ratio and your page appears to be cleaner.
Create highly optimized pages that limit the number of links, images, scripts etc. Sure, you can use all of those things in the main pages of your site, but consider creating a select few pages that are optimized by eliminating extra things that only bloat your code.
Never use tables. With the advent of CSS, we were finally able to eliminate the dreaded table from our design. Now you can define position and color and size without the use of a table. Every single cell in atable requires multiple definitions to describe the length, height, position, color, background color, padding, cell spacing etc. These elements can really begin to bloat the code when you have a table with 6 cells and each one has a table nested within it. Eliminate tables in favor of table-less CSS and Google will reward you.
Chadd Bryant
Internet Building Codes
SEO Tips and Tactics – Text to Code Ratio
Ever heard of a text to code ratio? This may be one of the few things that most SEO technicians are not aware of. A text to code ratio is simply a measurement of how much content you have on your page compared to the amount of code required to create that page. A low text to code ratio is bad. A high text to code ratio is good. If you Google “text to code ratio” you’ll find a number of sites that run a quick test on your page to determine the ratio. Run the test and see if you get a number like 3% or 63%. A result of 3% basically means that your page is 3% content and 97% code. That’s pretty pathetic. Google sees sites like that and gives up and goes away. They’re not interested in reading code. They’re only interested in finding the visible text that your readers can see. If you make Google crawl through obnoxious amounts of code, just to find the content in your site, they’ll give up and skip your pages. On the other hand, if you code your pages so that they are clean and use CSS, your text to code ratio will likely be above 30% or 40%. Great sites are above 60%. Strive for a high text to code ratio and Google will reward you.
Chadd Bryant
Internet Building Codes
SEO Tips and Tactics – Deep Crawling
Last time, we talked about getting people to link to your site and to add your site to their favorites. This time, were going to discuss something called “deep crawling.” What’s deep crawling? It’s when a search engine comes to your site and begins reading through all of the pages in your site. They follow each link that they encounter and eventually find all of the pages in your site. Then all of the content in your site is catalogged so when someone searches for something that matches the content of your site, your site is listed in the search results pages. Now that’s a perfect scenario. A more realistic scenario would look like this…
A search engine comes to your site, reads through a couple pages and gets disgusted for one reason or another and leaves. You can have a site up for years and never have some of your pages spidered by the search engines. Why is it that they read some and not others? Well, it can be for caused by many different factors. Sometimes a search engine dislikes your bloated code, so they leave. Sometimes they encounter a broken link or a malfuntioning script. So they leave. Or, a very common issue is the use of too many directories or folders. If you save a file in a folder, enclosed in another folder, enclosed in another folder, the search engines will likely ignore that page. It’s simply buried too deep. It doesn’t seem to tough to open a virtual folder, but Google doesn’t like doing it. I’ve seen pages that are unranked, go from not being found, to the top of the results page within a couple days, just by moving the page out of several folders and saving it at the root directory. This easy access pleases Google and they’ll reward you. Despite what you may read, they don’t like deep crawling. Don’t make then struggle to find your page. Keep it simple and they’ll reward you.
Chadd Bryant
Internet Building Codes
SEO Tips and Tactics
Did you know that adding a “link to this page” script to your site can increase your search engine ranking? It can. Google is now looking at bookmarks as a way to determine what the public thinks of a site. If they see that thousands of visitors have chosen to save your site in their favorites, then your site must be pretty good. They’re essentially letting the public vote for the winners of the search engine game. The same is true for links. If you can get a lot of other sites to link to yours, you’re essentially getting other sites to vote for yours. They are saying that your site is good enough to link to. So just add a little script that reminds people to bookmark your site. Over time, you’ll begin to see a difference. Remember, it’s just one of the many things you’ll need to do in order to rank well though.
Chadd Bryant
Internet Building Codes
SEO Tips and Tactics
Let’s get right into it today and discuss some more great SEO tips and tactics. We’ve already discussed domain extensions, file size, URL length and more. Today, we’re going to discuss using your address in the footer of every page on your site.
If you run a local business, it’s likely that you want to be found when people search for something like “plumbers in San Francisco.” You don’t care to be found at the top of the search results when someone searches for “plumbers in Dallas.” You’re not flying to Texas to unplug a drain. But you do want to be found at the top of the local results. The best way to do that is to add your address with your city and state to the bottom of every page on your site. Google quickly begins to see the trend and they recognize that you’re located in San Francisco. Better yet, put something in your footer that says, “For all your plumbing needs. Serving San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.” That puts the work plumbing in close proximity to the cities that you serve. Google likes that and will rank your site higher than the others.
Hope that helps all of you local businesses out there.
Chadd Bryant
Internet Building Codes
