As with a lot of things, balance is always an important element in digital marketing. With SEO management and web development, business owners must balance what’s aesthetically pleasing with what will support conversion of a site visitor to a customers or client. And few people are ever sold on a company just because they had an appealing website.
One of the areas of web design that must be well balanced to ensure optimal ranking is html-to content-ratio. Since the beginning of internet search, web traffic has been (and continues to be) determined by information. Content drives interest for a website, so if you have a business website and you want targeted traffic, great content is the way to get it.
Of course, photos and graphics are all part of the equation. Photos and graphic elements communicate information more quickly than content and help to inspire, maintain or prolong interest. And with just a few seconds to capture their attention, photos and graphics can go a long way to help do that.
But the fact remains that good, useful content is the only thing that will keep your visitors on your website longer and lead to conversion, whether that means a sale online or a phone call or a visit to learn more about your business.
When a website is out of balance with so much more html than content, Google deems it less than authoritative and yanks it from the top most search rankings. Remember, Google wants to provide good customer service. When someone searches for information, Google wants to provide a quality list of sites that provide that information, not a splash of nice photos and graphics.
That’s why every time you post a new page to your website, you should ask yourself just how much new written content you’re adding. Does it pale in comparison to the size of the new graphic-laden page you have published. If so, perhaps it would be best to add event more quality content to that page, perhaps flesh out even more useful information so that there is more content than graphics, imagery or white-space.
If that doesn’t work for you, then consider designating that page as a “no-index” page, telling Google not to consider that page when evaluating your site’s level of authority.
If not, you may be driving your domain down the page ranks and losing valuable targeted traffic. So think twice about that next 10 line blog post. Perhaps it’s better used for your social media page, because the entire page of HTML you have to generate to publish those 10 lines may just set you back a few positions on Google, Yahoo and Bing search. And that’s no way to get those new clients and customers you’ve been looking for.
If you have questions about driving your sales through organic online traffic, call one of our consultants at 773.664.5819. We just love helping our clients gain real estate on Google!