What is the importance of web standards in Search Engine Optimization? Let’s look at what Brad Callen, current internet SEO expert, has to say about it in his article on websition.com.

Brad discusses the importance of the title tag, header tags and other xhtml markup tags specified in W3C standards for webpage design. If your designer isn’t validating their work, you need to address this issue because it will negatively effect your search engine rankings.

In his article titled ‘Basic SEO Article - Focusing on Quick Optimization Techniques for the Newbie‘, Brad discusses the use of the webpage title, header tags and other tags specified by W3C xhtml standards. This ties in with my recent experiement/article ‘Do Keywords Matter in SEO?‘. Bear in mind, this is what’s called ‘on-page’ seo.

There are basically two paths of SEO, on-page and off-page. Off-page SEO consists mostly of inbound links. While in-bound links are important, on-page SEO may become more important due to search engine abuse by link farms. On-page SEO consists of a variety of things including keywords, keyword placement, links and web standards.

What are Web Standards?

Web standards are ‘best-practice’ guidelines that developers use to create web pages. The W3C is one of the governing bodies for internet specifications. In a nutshell, the W3C makes suggestions for standardizing web development and encourage browser and website developers to follow the standards.

Why is this important? Imagine if your car mechanic didn’t have certification or standards to follow. You could end up with any sort of crazy patch on your car that, under different weather environments, could cause insane issues. The browser is the environment and the the standards, well are the standards.

Following web standards, developers create clean, optimized code that is easy for search engines to index. Standards also give the opportunity to place your keywords in prime places for SEO, including the title tag, header tags, link title tags and alt tags.

These tags are used for different purposes, including displaying websites for sight-impaired website visitors (a.k.a. - web accessiblity) and display on alternate viewers (think cell phones, blackberries or televisions). You can see how important is by reading about Target being sued over web accessiblity or the U.S. Government guidelines related to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Is On-Page SEO Important?

Let’s see what Brad says…

• “With everyone chasing after links, the playing field is leveled somewhat. This means that well-optimized pages will have a better chance of ranking higher if they might not beat the top websites on link count (but come close nevertheless).”

• “Because of keyword spamming, search engines paid more attention to links. Now, because of link-spamming, search engines are moving back towards paying more attention to other ranking factors, including on-page optimization.”

• “Over 90% of your competition probably doesn’t know how to optimize their web pages, or are doing it wrong, or are probably committing some sort of search engine spamming, so that you can immediately place yourself within the top 10% of your niche by just spending a few minutes on each page and getting things done right (or hiring someone to do it for you if you have a huge site).”

Search Engine algorithms change with the times and adjust for accuracy. On-page SEO seems to be more important now than in recent times due to the abuse of search engine rankings by ‘link-farms‘. Your content and markup have a dramatic impact on your search engine rankings more than anything else.

What Does This Have To Do With Web Standards?

Brad discusses the importance of keyword placement in the title tag, alt tags for images and header tags. Web standards specify that a title tag should exist for a web page and that images should have alt tags (alternate text for the image). Alt tags are used for web accessiblity and SEO.

Web Standard specifications also indicate that markup should be organized by header tags. Your first header should be enclosed by a h1 tag, the second by a h2 tag, etc. This also indicates importance to the search engines.

Links should also have titles, according to the XHTML markup spec. Notice how when you hover over a link, text is displayed. This is called the link title tag.

Wrap Up…

When you’re optimizing or hiring someone to optimize, be sure your pages validate to W3C standards. You can check this by using the W3C Validator service.

Standards make your website easier for search engines to read and index. Standards are so intertwined with SEO, you can’t afford to ignore them. They also make your website easier to maintain and ensure your website displays well across various browsers and OS platforms. Don’t underestimate the value of web standards in your SEO endeavors.