What Is W3C Compliance?

The W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium. Since 1994, the W3C has provided guidelines for how websites and web pages should be structured and created. The rules they outline are based on the “best practices” and while websites don’t have to comply to be viewed correctly in Internet Explorer and other popular browsers that cater to incorrect design practices, there are a number of compelling reasons to insure that you or your designer insure that the W3C guidelines are followed and that your site is brought into compliance.

Content-to-code ratio

Proper use of standards and bleeding edge best practices makes sure that not only is the copy marked up in a semantic fashion which search engines can interpret and weigh without confusion, it also skews the content-to-code ratio in the direction where it needs to be while forcing all of the information in the page to be made accessible, thus favoring the content. We’ve seen several occasions where the rebuilding of a site with standards, semantics, and our proprietary white hat techniques improves the përformance of pages site-wide in the SERPs.”

So, How Do I Bring My Site In Compliance With W3C Standards?

To be sure, this is easier said than done. Obviously, the ideal solution is to have your site designed in compliance with the standard. If you already have a website, you have one of two options:

1. Hire a designer familiar with W3C standards and have your site redone.
2. Prepare yourself for a significant learning curve and some frustration, but it’s well worth it.

Assuming you’ve decided to do the work yourself, there are several great resources available. By far, the best I’ve found in my travels is the Web Developer extension for Firefox. You’ll have to install the Firefox browser first and then install the extension. Among other great tools for SEO, this extension provides a one-click check for compliance, listing where your errors are, what causes them, and links to solutions right from the W3C. The extension includes testing for HTML, XHTML, CSS, and Accessibility compliance.

Where Do I Get Started?

The first place to start would be to download Firefox (count this as reason #47 to do so, as it’s a great browser) and install the Web Developer extension. This will give you easy access to testing tools. The next step is to bookmark the resources above. Once you’ve done these, it’s a good idea to run the tests on your site while also maintaining an example site that already complies, so you can review their code if needed.

To give you a less frustrating start, I would recommend beginning with your CSS validation. Generally, your CSS validation is easier and faster than the other forms. In my humble opinion, it’s always best to start with something you’ll be able to accomplish quickly to reinforce that you can, in fact, do it.

After CSS, you’ll need to move on to HTML or XHTML validation. Be prepared to set aside a couple of hours if you’re a novice with a standard site. More if you have a large site, of course.

Once you have validated your CSS and HTML/XHTML, it’s time to comply with Accessibility standards.

What you will do is clean up a lot of your code and move it into CSS, which means you’ll be adding to your stylesheet further. If you’re not comfortable with CSS, you may want to revisit the resources mentioned above. CSS is not a big mystery, although it can be challenging at first. As a pleasant by-product, you are sure to find a number of interesting effects and formats that are possible with CSS that you didn’t even know were so easily added to your site.

But What Do I Get From All This?

Once you’re done, you’ll be left with a compliant site that not only will be available on a much largër number of browsers (increasingly crucial as browsers such as Firefox gain more users) but you’ll have a site with far less code that will rank higher on the search engines because of it.

To be sure, W3C validation is not the “magic bullet” to top rankings.

In the current SEO world, nothing is. However, as more and more websites are created and competition for top positioning gets more fierce, it’s essential to take every advantage you can to not only get to the first page, but to hold your position against those who want to take it from you as
You took it from someone else.

About The Author
Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc.. He writes with years of experience in SEO and Internet Marketing. A special thanks go out to Frederick Townes of W3EDGE for his help with this article. W3 EDGE provides W3C-compliant website design for its clients. To stay updated on new SEO articles and news, be sure to visit the Beanstalk blog regularly.

Also see: W3C Validation Isn’t Everything.