Monkey Business Blog

Valid Markup and the W3C

posted on April 14th, 2008 by A Monkey Typing

I bet you’ve seen them before - those sneaky little lines of text at the bottom of certain
websites. They usually read “Valid HTML” and “Valid CSS”. Some sites even use an image to display this grand declaration:

What does it mean?

Declaring that a website is W3C valid is telling your viewers that you took the time to validate your website against the standards of the W3C, and your website came out victorious! Well actually it means your website passed w3c’s view of what is acceptable use of the code you chose to validate, usually HTML/XHTML and CSS.

Who is the w3c and why should I care what they think?

W3C is an acronym for The World Wide Web Consortium. Among other things, this group attempts to establish standards and guidelines for web technologies. They’ve developed programs to test website code to tell you whether or not it successfully adheres to their standards. What they think matters because they have a full time staff of technical experts and are internationally recognized as the authority on web standards.

Do people really care if sites meet W3C standards?

That’s pretty subjective. Some people care and some people don’t. Personally, if I wanted to buy a used accordian on Ebay, I could care less if their website adheres to web standards or not. If it doesn’t affect me, then why would it matter? But on the other hand, if I was interested in having a website built for me, I would certainly want to hire someone who adheres to standards created by web professionals. Assuming it would cost the same - wouldn’t you want a site built with code approved by people who know a lot more about it than you?

What exactly are these standards?

Some common “problems” the W3C validator sees with websites are very minor. If you use an ampersand (&) instead of the character code for it (&), it will tell you that your website failed validation. On the other hand, the validator also finds important problems, like having certain tags nested in the wrong order, which can affect how your website looks and behaves. Many websites don’t come close to passing w3c validation, such as Myspace, Facebook, Digg, Youtube…and even Google. I bet you never knew (or cared) about that!

Will following them make a difference?

Yes and no. Using the validator to find & fix an issue that would otherwise effect your visitors can make a major positive impact on your website. On the other hand, the validator is a tool to help you program correct code and diagnose problems. It’s not a bible to live your life by nor is it an indicator of a quality & useful website. When too much value is placed upon this tool, people tend to worry more about passing the validator than about what’s best for their viewers.

Like most things in life, the W3C validation service is best used for its intended use - to diagnose coding errors. When you start stressing out because your i’s aren’t dotted and your t’s aren’t crossed, maybe you need to take a break and re-evaluate the main purpose of your web presence.

But you have this “sneaky text” on your website!

Ah you got me. Yeah I paid attention to the validator and made sure it liked the site. Usually I don’t place much emphasis on this or even include validation links, but I like to think that people shopping for a website designer might care that I know how to code valid websites. If you do, great! If not, no harm done I hope.

Posted in Validation, Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

Creating your own website versus paying someone else to

posted on April 10th, 2008 by A Monkey Typing

It’s easy for anyone with a dollar and a dream to think up, create, publish and market a website. Sounds easy right? Throw a few bucks at Godaddy for a domain, another few bucks at a hosting company, and you have a website! Well, actually you have a domain and a host, you can create a website by installing wordpress, a forum or a list of other free CMS scripts. Then find or write some content, and there we go - your very own website for less than an initial 20 dollar investment and very little effort.

Well not really.

Why not? Well you made a site that looks like a clone of every other wordpress website out there. I bet you’d love to change some things around, maybe move this box over there and that box over here, but alas it’s not so simple. You can always download free templates to change the look of your site, but you’re still looking at standard templates that other websites could be using. In doing this, you’re going to be adding content to your website to fit inside this standard template. This isn’t good, in fact it’s backwards. Your website design should be created around your website content. If your content is really good, you can use a generic template and do pretty well. However, having a professionally made will ensure your website design and content compliment each other, which can make a difference on the amount of visitors you receive, and of course your bottom line.

How does a complimentary website do better?

When a website is semantic & designed around your content, a few things occur:

• You have complete control as to where your content is placed. This means your important information is strategically placed so it’s delivered to your visitors in order of importance
• You will be taken more seriously. People tend to take professionally built websites seriously. Your visitors can recognize which sites were slapped together, and which sites were created to function and look professionally.
• Your bottom line will be better. It’s a fact that the better-ranked your site is with search engines, the more people will click your link, and the more potential you have for revenue or visitors.
• Semantic websites are programmed so that all of your visitors (firefox, internet explorer, apple users, etc) are looking at the same website. If your website is not programmed correctly, some users will not see a fully-functioning website, which will either take a chunk out of your bottom line or cost money and time to fix.

What exactly does semantic mean?

A semantic website is organized, well-structured and correctly programmed. Why does this matter to you? Being organized and structured will allow your visitors to find what they want with little to no time wasted. Being correctly programmed means that your site will display correctly on all web browsers, will be available to those with mobile browsers, and disabled visitors using special browsers will be able to browse as well.

In closing

Whether you slap a website together, or invest a few bucks into it’s creation, you’re going to see a difference. If you aren’t that serious about your website idea, then go for the do-it-yourself route. I did, and it was one of the greatest learning experiences I’ve ever had. But if you want a serious website then you need make semantically & SEO friendly. If you don’t at first, you’ll very likely have it done at some point in the future when you want to expand. When do you think it’s easier and cheaper? When you first plan out the site or months/years down the road when you’ve site has grown considerably?

Posted in SEO, Website Design, Website Development | 3 Comments »