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How important is it to write code that is W3C compliant? If you will poke about the web a bit, you will find answers ranging from “W3C compliant code is vital” to “valid code, whatever”.

Some people seem to care about witting valid code because if reflects on their reputation. Whether you write the code or pay the writer, the quality reflects on you, don’t you think? If you use style sheets, you want valid CSS, both because it looks well in your portfolio and because valid code works properly, by design. If you declare your document as XHTML Strict, then you want to write valid XHTML, if you wish to be taken seriously. If you use style sheets, and most likely you do, you want to use valid CSS as well. That is if you care about your reputation as a careful crafter of valid code, or a business person who knows how to choose a coder. But what if you only want to make money? What about SEO? Is search engine optimization affected by code validation?

If you care about SEO, you care about traffic, right? And if you care about traffic there is more to it than Google ranking. W3C compliant code can be important in generating and maintaining traffic. Do you want people to Digg your stuff? Sure you do. They are much more likely to do so if you use valid CSS and valid code in general, so that their browser will let them see what you are trying to say. Do you want people to link to you, bookmark you, come back again and again, and send all their friends, associates, and customers to your well-crafted site? You bet you do.

If you want all that, you can’t afford to ignore the importance of writing or having written valid W3C compliant code. Valid XHTML is functional XHTML, and functional sites lead visitors into staying, following, linking, and returning. And that’s good for business. Valid CSS works, shows them what you want them to see, or hear for that matter, and keeps them on your page and off the competitors.

You can argue that writing W3C compliant code doesn’t guarantee high search engine ranking, and therefore isn’t important for SEO purposes. But that point of view ignores other important actors, like usability and accessibility. If you write a site in valid XHTML, combined with valid CSS, you might not get top five ranking just because of your valid code. But you will get clean function, the respect of your peers, the appreciation of your employer, and return traffic. Combine that with good content writing and your SEO goals can be met, while pleasing the validation bot as well.

Then there is the future of search engine optimization to be considered. You may say that right now the crawler doesn’t report whether your XHTML code is W3C compliant or not. But that can change. Maybe today Google won’t slide you back three pages for failing to write valid CSS. But what about their next batch of spiders? SEO will continue to be important to web business; nobody doubts that.

Is making sure that your site is W3C compliant the magic wand that will guarantee effective search engine optimization? No, there isn’t one, I’m afraid. But writing valid code or hiring a site builder that will use valid code is surely one of the important building blocks of SEO. Try it and see.