Worth Modifying Code to Have Text Appear Near Top
-
Our site uses Wordpress. The code is somewhat heavy. The text to code ratio for the home page is only 16%.
Our developer suggests that we modify the code so that the important text appears at the top of the page (without changing the design) so that Google can index it more easily. My developer feels this would be more beneficial for SEO. He believes that reducing the code would create HTML errors. The home page is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com
Is this approach sound?
My developer describes it in the following manner:
| Let me say that I don’t believe the text to code ratio has a significant impact on SEO per se but of course that reducing code, it will reduce page weight therefore it may help to improve ranking.
See Homepage for example, this is the top landing page of your site, therefore it is very relevant to optimize. You can see the first block, from attached it has very little content and too many code. There is almost nothing to do about it, visually that is a very good block, in terms of SEO it isn't. I do not recommend to take it off just for SEO, that will make all pages with lot of text, lack of images and people may go away.
On the other hand, most of the cases we want to improve text code ratio, there is an impact on unexpected BUGs because the code is being changed and this may affect functionality.
I would suggest to spend time on improve the sort-order of the important content inside the code, so we may have similar text code ratio at the end but the important code we need Google to index will be at the very top in the source code, in terms of a very technical approach Google will find the key content faster and that should help to improve the crawling process as search engines read HTML code linearly. This change do not necessarily will affect the HTML, we can achieve it by using style sheet (CSS code) instead, reducing the chance of major BUGs.
Either is our choice, we need to evaluate potential problems, code issues and content impact and also we need to apply changes and wait at least 3-4 weeks to start seeing results. It is a long task.
Let me know your thought about this, we will estimate a task to improve code without affect web design |
-
Hi,
Text > HTML ratio isn't actually a ranking factor and there is no penalty based on this. What you can do with it, is use it as an indicator on how big your pages are and identify those that might be slowing do the loading.
There is no test or correlation that would suggest that reducing this text > HTML ratio will do anything for your rankings.
You need to also try and get away from the thought process that SEO is just about search positions - you need to think about customer acquisitions and page usability as well. For example, if I look at your home page and you were to just add a block of text at the top, then this would reduce the effectiveness of the big messages and search availability at the top. it would push down the main search box and offer nothing of use that anyone would really want to read.
So no, don't add text to the top of the page as this isn't needed. If this were just one big picture with nothing at all there, then it might be a different discussion.
Are your search positions dropping at the moment, or is there a reason that this came about?
I have clients whose Text > HTML ratio is 6-8% and in 1st position for very highly sought after terms. There is a lot more at play.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
OK to change the anchor text of a link?
I have built a link on behalf of a ciient in a long, well-written article on a reputable website that accepts contributor accounts. I therefore control the link. I have since realised that the anchor text of the link could be optimized much better than it currently is (while still only being a partial match). Would I be punished by the algorithm for going in and changing the link? I know it's not 100% "natural," but then we're SEOs, and i don't think it's too implausible that a website owner may go in and do the same... Maybe if I add some text as well, it would make things look more natural?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zakkyg1 -
Knowledge Graph Quick Answer Box: Is there anything we can do to get our content to appear there?
Hi everyone, The quick answers box can be really helpful for searchers by pulling through content which answers their question or provides a clear description of an item or entity. Our client appeared in the quick answer box for a period of time with their description of a product, but have since been replaced by one of their competitors. Previously, the answer was provided by Wikipedia. Is there anything we can do to help get our client's content back in there? We've been looking at possible structured data we can use but haven't found anything. Also suggesting our client ensures they have a paragraph within their copy which is a clear, concise description of the product that Google can pull. Can anyone give any suggestions? Thanks Laura
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tomcraig860 -
Internal Search Results Appear in Google SERPS
My friend is running an ecommerce store selling apparels. How can we make internal search results to appear in Google SERPS and rank them? For example: the query is "peplum dress". You type the query into the internal search box and it returns a set of results. In this case, it's product listing. How can we optimize and rank it so it appears in Google SERP? Do we do it the traditional way in terms of links? Say URL is: http://www.asos.com/search/peplum-top?q=peplum+top&r=2 And we build links to it? Some of you may ask why not create a dedicated page for this, the reason being we'd have too many categories if we were to create one for each. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
Why does Google show Titles different than the coded titles?
Hi, I've noticed that on many pages Google shows on the SERPS titles that he chose for me and not necessarily the ones coded in the Title tag (usually small difference like adding suffix etc.). Why is that? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Anchor Text Usage
Hi, What is the best way to use anchor text during link building after recent updates from Google. I thinking of doing the following: 60% Brand Keyword (my site name)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vegitss
20% Click here, visit this site etc
20% myurl.com
10% a Mix of both broad & phrase match of my targetted keyword. What do you suggest Does anyone have a working strategy? Will be waiting for your replies...0 -
Anchor text questions - What are your thoughts?
Hi, I want to talk about anchor text and the effect it has on search engines (Good & Bad). Here is a fictitious example we can talk about: www.supercoolrunningsneakers.com Title Tag: Running Sneakers - The Super Trendy Running Trainers Keywords targeted: Running Sneakers, Running Trainers How would you vary your anchor text to target these terms? If you had 50 unique articles to play with how would you vary the anchor text using the articles? Would you push 25 articles at 'Running Sneakers' and the other 25 at 'Running Trainers' or would you link some articles using the domain name anchor text? Q: I'm guessing running 50 articles using anchor text 'Running Sneakers' would benefit the SERP's moe for that term then mixing it up with say 'Running Sneakers', 'Running Trainers' & 'Domain Name Links'. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Undocumented anchor-text API result
Regarding the anchor-text api, there is no definition for *imr on the wiki:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sycorr
http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/13991127/Anchor Text API ie. http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/anchor-text/google.com?Scope=phrase_to_page&Cols=2048&Sort=domains_linking_page&Expires=1329770786.46868 returns "[{"apuimr":5.422834471373288e-12},{"apuimr":4.785130890652429e-13},{"apuimr":2.922901387480201e-09}]" What is *imr?0 -
Top 3 actions I should immediately take.... ?
Site: bussongs.com I have a fairly successful (400k visits/month, 1.2m PV/month) site which features a directory of kids songs. kididdles.com is my archnemesis. Slight edge in PVs with better ranking on many long-tail KWs (song names mainly). What are the top 3 things I should do to knock out my competitor? I feel I've nailed the on-page stuff - I have checked all the major items and produced superior content. The big thing that shouts out to me is that my competitor just has many more backlinks, especially from unique domains and that's lifting up everything. Thoughts? Can't wait to hear your ideas!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kmander0