Are low text-HTML ratios still a negative SEO ranking factor?

Today I ran SEMRUSH site audit that showed 344 out of 345 pages on our website (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) show an text-HTML ratio that ranges from 8% to 22%.  This is characterized as a warning on SEMRUSH. This error did not exist in April when the last SEMRUSH audit was conducted.

Is it worthwhile to try to externalize code in order to improve this ratio? Or to add  text (major project on a site of this size)? These pages generally have 200-400 words of text.

Certain URLs, for example www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/nycofficespaceforlease more text, yet it still shows an text-HTML ratio of only 16%.

We recently upgraded to the WordPress 4.2.1. Could this have bloated the code (CSS etcetera)  to the detriment of the text-HTML ratio?

If Google has become accustomed to more complex code, is this a ratio that I can ignore.

Thanks, Alan

Hi Matt:

That makes sense. Regarding competition from domains such as mta.info we are targeting a completely different set of keywords relating to office space and commercial real estate in Manhattan, so I would think that we would not have to worry about competing with them.

On another note, do you think that having one hyphen in the domain harms us from an SEO perspective? I understand that visitors might have more difficulty in remembering the domain and returning, however I wonder if there is a direct effect on ranking.

Not sure if the domain without hyphens is available and we already own metro-manhattan.

Thanks, Alan

Hi Sandi:

Thanks for your response!!

Our niche (commercial real estate) is competitive and the most obvious/best domain names are  taken. Whether it is best to use a keyword phrase in the domain seems unclear. Not sure if one desirable word (like "Manhattan" in our case) would be a plus. Not certain  the effect of an actual phrase like "Manhattan office space". I have heard that now a days a competitive phrase in a domain is a ranking minus.

Many of our competitors (regus.com, 42floors.com) do not use any keyword in their domain. But they also have a massive advertising and SEO budget to build links and create brand recognition. As a small firm I don't have that budget.

There is also a question about how brand names will appear in  anchor text and if that anchor text then appears more like a money term or a brand.

In terms of domains, choices would be greater if we use a non.com domain. But I don't know how Google would view this. We also have the option of getting a ".NYC" domain (we are in New York City) but not certain if this would be a ranking plus.

We are looking to rebrand our domain name. Our existing domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com.

We own www.metro-manhattan.com and were hoping to use this domain. The company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc.

Is the fact that the new domain contains "Manhattan" a negative? I know that the fact that it has a hyphen is weak.

Manhattan is part of such keywords as "Manhattan office space". Regarding the company name, is the fact that it contains the target phrase "Manhattan office space" bad? Our company name may sound like exact match anchor text and I am not sure what to do about this if anything. I would really prefer to keep our name but it is necessary to change it to improve SEO we will do so. Would it be better to change to a new name like "Integrity Real Estate" which does not contain target phrases or keywords ("real estate" is not a major target phrase as it is to generic) ? Or how something like www.mmos.com for the domain and leave the company name alone?

How would I go about finding a  company that would assist is in creating an SEO friendly domain name and perhaps a new corporate name if necessary?

Thanks, Alan

Thanks Linda!!

So by adding the noydir for instance, the specific URL would not be indexed by Yahoo?

I don't quite understand the utility of this!!! I would think that something like a property listing should appear.

For instance our home page has this tag set up like this: name="robots" content="noodp,noydir"/><meta< span=""></meta<>

Wouldn't this exclude our home page from Yahoo and the Open Directory? Now I am particularly concerned because most of our major landing pages have the "noodp,noydir" tag.

Are we doing something wrong??

In term of my original question, are site has many listings and the default tag is 
name="robots" content="index, follow"/><meta< span=""></meta<>

Is there any downside to setting up this way?

Thanks!!! Alan

When should "Noodp" and "Noydir" meta robot tag be used?

I have hundreds or URLs for real estate listings on my site that simply use "Index", Follow" without using Noodp and Noydir. Should the listing pages use these Noodp and Noydr also? All major landing pages use Index, Follow, Noodp, Noydir. Is this the best setting in terms of ranking and SEO.

Thanks, Alan

As a real estate brokerage firm our business is local in nature. If we can get improved ranking for such terms as "New York City office space" it would help our business immensely.

Your suggestion of using both .com and .NYC is very good. 
Thanks,
Alan