W3C, World Wide Web Consortium, provides guidelines by which websites should be structured. It is believed that a website in compliance with W3C guidelines is easier for search engines to interpret because the information of web pages is well-organized and easily accessible. This will have positive effects on search engine result pages.
Other advantages
– W3C Compliance improves user accessibility for various devices, PCs, cell phones and PDAs.
– W3C Compliance improves user accessibility for various browsers, versions, and resolutions.
– W3C Compliance improves user accessibility for the disabled.
How do I make my site comply to W3C guidelines?
Suggested Tool:
Web Developer extension for FireFox
Install the FireFox browser first and then install the Web Developer extension. You can run validation tests for HTML, CSS, Links, XHTML and so on. This tool provides information about the causes of the errors and the W3C links for solutions as well as a list of errors. To use FireFox validation, simply click on Tools from the developer toolbar.
– Run CSS validation first because CSS errors are easier to fix when you find W3C errors.
– Run HTML validation, starting with the index page. If your site is dynamic, most likely you need to correct the index file and other templates. If your site has numerous static web pages, you can use an HTML editor to fix errors for multiple files at a time.
– Run other validation and follow the suggested links to resolve any errors.
Compliance to W3C standards doesn’t guarantee top search engine rankings as there is no such magic solution in the search engine world. But every little step counts and following W3C guidelines is definitely a helpful step in getting good search engine rankings.