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Award winning SEM agency bigmouthmedia hires Senior Search Strategist from iProspect
Bigmouthmedia has appointed Karin McLean to the newly created role of Operations Manager, McLean was previously Search Strategist at Massachusetts-based Search Marketing firm iProspect.
The appointment marks another significant growth phase...
Making The Business Case For Web Standards
Through the explosive growth of the Web, companies have realized the benefit of building a strong online presence. By publishing a website to the Internet, companies are able to build their brand, market their products, support existing...
The True Meaning of Freeware
The vast majority of us will have, at some point, had freeware games or applications installed on our systems. If you’ve played an online Java or Flash based game, you’ve used freeware. In a very real way the Internet itself is freeware, a...
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The top three search pages- the only place you’ll be noticed they say. Unfortunately, they are correct. How can you possibly compete with millions of pages? Many represent thousands of dollars of professional search marketing and optimization per...
Web Templates For The Home and Hobbyist
A lot of individuals, clubs, and organizations would like to share their interests or group mission with others, but to present it on the Internet would mean learning the complicated language that goes with programming, or else hiring a professional...
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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
For Chinese Dissidents, Exile Can Mean Irrelevancy
Chinese activists have often fallen off the radar after leaving their homeland. Activist Chen Guangcheng is now safely in America, but hopes he can still play a role in China, where he fought forced abortions and sought to improve conditions for the disabled.
NATO Plans 'Irreversible Transition' In Afghanistan
President Obama held a press conference Monday afternoon as NATO wrapped up its Chicago summit. Audie Cornish talks to Scott Horsley for more.
SEC's Investigation Unit 'Outgunned, On A Roll'
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — once accused by a whistle blower of not being able to find ice cream at a Dairy Queen — is experiencing something of a culture shift. Last year the agency filed a record 735 enforcement actions and collected nearly a billion dollars in penalties from companies with SEC violations. Audie Cornish talks to Devin Leonard, staff writer for <em> Bloomberg Businessweek</em>, about his article, "The SEC: Outmanned, Outgunned, and On a Roll."
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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