Getting high SEO rankings is very much a talent as a webmaster. One of the factors is what is known as the code to text ratio. Ratios are important in business as key performance indicators and this ratio is important as a strong SEO rankings indicators.
There is not one strong good definition of this ratio; however, we will attempt to define it succinctly. Simply stated it is the amount of actual content (or text) when compared to the amount of HTML code associated with that text. It will appear now that search engines are looking for more text or content relative to the amount of code that displays the relative content.
Since real humans are searching the internet for real content about a product, news or niche, the higher the actual content relative to the HTML code the better.
Code to text ratio determination for Dummies
Okay, no one is saying you’re a dummy okay! We just wanted to catch your attention.
We will describe the ratio as follows:
Actual text displayed on a page / HTML = Text to Code ratio
The higher the number the better! In other words, the more text you have the better. So minimizing the HTML to display a page filled with content is good. In addition to that, it is the text we are looking for, not graphics. So a page with strong animation, pictures or graphics, but with very little text will not have a high ratio. It will not raise your SEO rankings.
Understand that if you flip this around to the following formula:
HTML/Actual text displayed on a page = Code to Text Ratio
This is still the same comparison but with the opposite effect. The smaller the better, so just know what you are looking at when you place the numerator and the denominator.
You can either manually determine this code by counting the actual texts content and then going to HTML and counting the code. A very tedious task indeed! We will discuss automatic checkers shortly.
Determining the optimal Code to Text Ratio is like Tax Rates
The Laffer curve is used to try to describe the optimal rate at which to tax individuals for maximum efficiency and revenue intake. Taxes at either end of 0% to 100% will result in basically no revenue to the Federal Treasury. Somewhere in between these rates is optimal taxation.
Potentially, trying to find the optimal HTML code percent is similar and can be debated. However, there have been observations. Trying to get to a balanced approach in finding the optimal HTML code percent on your displayed page would be the goal. A lot of text with some animation or graphics is a good balance.
Basically, if you can achieve a 25 to 70 percent ratio this is because you are on the upswing and just past the top of a parabolic curve of 0% to 100%. So this starts to make sense toward getting to the optimal HTML code percent.
Help me; I need a good accurate tool!
Of course, no one wants to do this manually so is there a good tool out there to help with this ratio while we are on the hunt for high SEO rankings? Trying to find a good accurate tool online can be a bit challenging. There are many sites that provide a code to text checker so it would be in your best interest to check out several of them, maybe even up to 10 different ones to find the best for you.
Of course, you can improve your code to text ratio by eliminating part of the HTML codes that do not do anything such as white spaces. That is exactly what happened using site24x7.com tool as they gave the ratio with the white spaces and without the white spaces. The ratio shown for them was higher with the white spaces on both websites.
So in your search for a great and awesome text to code checker, it is important to find one that can actually help you fix the content and the codes for optimization. Just telling you what it is will not help, you are back to manually fixing it. So subscribe to a service that will actually fix it and bring the text to code ratio to a higher SEO ranking.
Of course, if you want to get really serious with your SEO rankings and getting deep down into an analysis of your website, it would behoove you to check out ScanBacklinks on page analyzer. We have a free backlink check and on page SEO analyzer tool. You can create a free account and use ScanBacklinks SEO tool.
If you simply put in your URL address you will get a partial report with 100 backlinks analysis. You will get unique backlinks, links to Homepage, and links to another page and not follow links. This is extremely limited so signing up for the free account will get you a more detailed report. Well worth having them to help you build your SEO rankings.
So why is this important to the code to text ratio? The higher the content you have relative to the code that was used to display it will increase your SEO rankings.
When you get right down to it, SEO optimization is not just a one-factor situation. It is a multifaceted approach that text to format ratio is just one of the variables.
Have questions write them in the comments below
We trust that you enjoyed this article and that it was educational and instructive to you. If you have any more questions, please write them in the comments below.