Valid W3C – Search Engine Optimisation Friendly Web Design
Just as in the written language, there is a right way and a wrong way to write the code that makes a website. Correctly written and valid HTML allows search engines to read the code of a site faster and easier, but with regards to SEO, it can have an even larger impact. Badly coded sites with mistakes in, can be penalized by the programs that check the sites content. Coding mistakes can also lead to your site looking different to different users on different computers. It might look fantastic on your Imac, but it may not work at all on a PC!
So, how do you check that your site is compliant with the standards? We use a tool provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3), an international group that works to ensure the long term standards of sites on the web.
This page offers some simple to use instructions on how to use the tool. By typing in the website address, the tool will automatically check the site to see if its coding is up to standard. If there are problems, the tool helpfully shows you where the problem is in the code, and also gives some brief information on how to fix it. After you have altered the code, simply re run the checker to see if the site is now up to standard.
Once the site has been checked and approved, you can add the following icon to the bottom of the web page:-
to let people that visit your site, know that you have taken the time and the trouble to provide a site that fits all the requirements for now, and tomorrow, on the World Wide Web.
