Web Standards… what’s the hubbub, bub?
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!