Peer Pressure Creative

What does Web Standards mean to the business owner? Is there a truly sustainable business value in adopting Web Standards?

Even though it’s still struggling among adopters (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) the Web Standards movement is now in it’s 10th year. The goal of the Web Standards movement is to unify the practice of web development in order to establish a truly interoperable platform among web mediums. In english? The movement is trying to set rules for web developers to follow so that their websites will render the same across all major web browsers. But this movement is not only aimed at Web Developers, but those companies who are making the actual web browsers too, so this is a two way street. Ok, now let’s talk about what Web Standards means to the business owner.

1. Building for the Future - When building in Web Standards, you will be safeguarding your website for years to come. The Web is a truly universal platform, and will continue to be supported and maintained long after other platforms have fallen by the wayside.

2. Search Engine Optimization - If you don’t adopt Web Standards for any other reason, adopt it for this! One of the most compelling arguments when it comes to value of standards is that if you are writing markup, CSS and JavaScript according to the standards ideologies, you are opening up a world of opportunity when it comes to better SEO. The technical reason is because a semantically written document allows search engines to find headers and critical keywords within text that much faster.

3. Universal Access - When building a website you must keep your audience in mind. If your designer is adhering to the standards ideologies you will have a site that will service everything from cell phones to visually-impared users seamlessly.

4. Scalability - As your business grows, your website will too. A great deal of effort can be saved by building your site in standards from the start. Something as small as a minimal site color refresh can save many hours because the styles are being defined by external style sheets rather than in each page of the site.

5. Better User Experience - A standards site is a lighter site which is a faster loading site on the user end. Faster loading sites improve the end user’s experience, keeping your users happy customers!

Are your HTML Email campaigns rendering correctly with every email client?

Ok, so we talk a lot about Web Standards and Web Accessibility for the World Wide Web, but how about those businesses that send out HTML Email campaigns? Standards are just as important to email as they are to websites. Email standards are so important, there is even an Email Standards Project organization that was formed to educate people on Email Standards… pretty cool huh? Ok, so as a business owner what can you do to ensure your email campaigns are successful across all major email clients (except Gmail… what’s up with that Google??)

1. Find a designer that understands Email Standards - Sounds pretty simple, huh? Well, all we can say is do your homework. You as a savvy business owner have to fully understand that the designer you’re working with completely understands the importance of Email Standards. This is your company image we’re talking about here. If your emails aren’t coming through clearly it doesn’t make you or the designer look good!

2. Ask for screenshots of your email campaign tested in multiple email clients - If your designer is familiar with Email Standards, they will already be doing this, so they will have no problem providing you with screenshots.

3. Always include a plain text version - It is always good practice to include a plain text version of your email campaign. The reason for this is that some of your customers might be viewing your email on a mobile device that does not support HTML email. The plain text version of your email should include the copy points that your HTML email includes plus a link to view the email as a webpage. By doing this, you are still providing your customers with the full experience and information of your email, so your message is still reaching them.

When it comes to web design, the basics are key. Valid and semantically written code will produce a better website. Whether we’re talking about search engine rankings, fast load times, or Web Accessibility it all points back to square one… good code.

1. Organization is Key - A well structured website is key to online success life eternal happiness everything! (haha). Search engines read a website from the start of the code all the way to the end. They don’t see the presentation side of the website such as images, colors, and your pretty flash animations. This is why it is so important to have well structured code with emphasis on key words and topics. This is a perfect lead in to our next topic, Hand Coding.

2. Hand Coding is best - Sooo we’re not fans of Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG editor, we love CODA!! Hand coding a website ensures that the code is as lean as possible with no unnecessary code. This helps with everything from SEO to load times. We can’t stress hand coding enough, well we can try… hand coding is very very very very very very very very very very important! There… is that enough “very’s??”