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Business_Benefits_of_the_Web_Standards
| Business Benefits of the Web Standards
Why your business benefits from adhering to the web
standards
Web standards are created to give benefits to the developer and
the visitor. As a business, your website must be accessible,
usable, attractive and convey a message of trust and
professionalism. Getting this right can be both expensive and
difficult if done outside of the W3 standards.
Let's look at the main benefits of web standards.
Accessibility
Valid XHTML and CSS will ensure that a site is constructed in a
way that seperates the content from presentation.
There are huge business gains to be had from this method such as
less maintenance, more control, lower costs etc., but
importantly, accessible content. Not everyone uses a common
browser to access the web and a valid site will mean your
information will have the widest potential audience.
Usability
Semantic markup creates a usable website. We have all seen
cluttered sites with no per-page focus, navigation that leads
you into the abyss and forces URL amendments as well as document
structure that makes a web page unreadable and hard to follow.
You have a point to make. Every page has a focus and the content
is clear. Web standards will ensure that people get to the point
of your site, quickly and effortlessly.
Compatibility
We are in the 21st century and there are now a wider range of
platforms, devices and browsers than ever before. More and more
people are accessing the internet and due to this diversity,
building a website by following guidelines is the only way to
ensure uniformity.
Substantially increased performance
By removing formatting from the markup, you can reduce the file
sizes of your website which means people with slower connections
or users from around the globe have a better browsing
experience. Using tables for layout can sometimes treble the
file sizes as positioning requires attributes to table cells and
occasionally invisble images forcing layouts to look "correct".
CSS can acheive this and more from a light weight text file that
when cached, will not need reloading further increasing
performance.
Higher search engine rankings
Not only will a user struggle to navigate an unusable and
invalid site, so will a search engines spider. If your documents
are marked up correctly and fast to load then a search engine
will reward your web pages with better listings. Why serve a
user a scruffy and hard to read web page when a perfectly
readable and accessible page exists?
Powerful designs
CSS is an extremely flexible and powerful way of styling a
website. All the formatting is contained within one text file
meaning a new design overhaul is very cost effective and fast to
turn around from a designers point of view, meaning lower costs
to the business. If done correctly, CSS can degrade gracefully
in older browsers which lack support into a perfectly readable
document which is the beauty of following the web standards.
Lower business costs
A website following the web standards is a more efficient and
smaller website in terms of file sizes and bandwidth.
This translates into reduced hosting costs. Changing contractors
can be a problem if the code is written with proprietary
software that creates untidy or browser specific HTML. Following
a set of standards means contractors can hit the ground running
and give you far better value for money.
About the author:
Author of Optimising Your Website, and an IT Consultant for
local UK Government and various European Union initiatives,
Edward Clarke specialises in website accessibility, css, web
standards and search engine optimisation. Visit Edward's consultancy website and his blog for more information.
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