Valid HTML and business value

Evil Phil · 20-04-2010 7:45pm #1

I stood up in front of about 50 business owners last year and explained to them importance of valid HTML. The first question I was asked was "What's it business value?" I explained that from an SEO point of view it was vital. "Okay, besides that what's its value?", I have to say I was stumped. I bleated on about professionalism but they new as well as I did that I couldn't answer the question.

I still am stumped. I'm not advocating invalid markup, perish the thought, but ...

To you're average SME business owner, namely the person who signs the cheques, what is it's business value? How important is semantically correct markup to SEO anyway? Do they pay less if you nest a div in a listitem?

20-04-2010 8:18pm

The point of valid mark up has more to do with designer & developers making the web have a better toolset than it does as end users.

I would't bother talking about web standards to business owner in any way other than as a footnote.

Liam Byrne · 20-04-2010 8:48pm

Evil Phil wrote: »

I explained that from an SEO point of view it was vital. "Okay, besides that what's its value?"

So they can't see a business "value" in giving a site the best possible chance of a decent ranking in Google ?

strandroad · 20-04-2010 9:44pm

Page loading times -> server load -> hosting fees.
Cross browser compatibility -> user satisfaction & broader user range.
Updateability & scalability -> expansion costs.

cormee · 20-04-2010 10:11pm

Another benefit of valid markup is accessibility. Malformed code may cause problems with assistive technology like screen readers.

Dave! · 21-04-2010 2:44am

I woulda thought that if it gives the page a better ranking in search engines, then the benefit/value is pretty obvious?

jmcc · 21-04-2010 9:57am

Evil Phil wrote: »

To you're average SME business owner, namely the person who signs the cheques, what is it's business value? How important is semantically correct markup to SEO anyway? Do they pay less if you nest a div in a listitem?

You have to put it in terms they understand. Tell them how many customers they lose because of bad SEO. Tell them how much their competitors are gaining because of their poor SEO. If you want a concrete example search for this in Google:
intitle:"Welcome to the Frontpage"

That's the Joomla muppet sig from people who haven't the brains to change the default Joomla title on the front page but still sell their leet Joomla CMS skills to some poor unsuspecting customer. Tell them that they are now competing with about 24.4 million other victims worldwide. Then ask them how people going to find their site in this mess?

Regards...jmcc

mneylon · 21-04-2010 11:06am

You'd expect a mechanic to work to a standard, so why would a designer / developer be any different?

nellyshark · 21-04-2010 11:47am

I would always equate a website to a shop. There are standards in place in relation to the developments of a shop, not least cleaning, accessibility, etc so as far as I am concerned having a valid website is ensuring your website complies to standards. I wonder how many of these "businesspeople" would have a drop in standards in their office/shop/workspace :rolleyes:. Some folks just don't understand, if they are not a client of mine and are just ignorant to any info you can provide, then I wouldn't bat an eyelid whether they understand the necessity of a valid site

Pixelcraft · 21-04-2010 2:52pm

can I just point out that validity and accessibility are different things. I believe and implement both, but let's not get them confused please!

Evil Phil · 21-04-2010 7:55pm

p wrote: »

The point of valid mark up has more to do with designer & developers making the web have a better toolset than it does as end users.

I would't bother talking about web standards to business owner in any way other than as a footnote.

I have to agree, it really doesn't have any immediate sell-able value other than SEO. I guess maintenance could be another footnote, but reliability and availability of "our web guy" is far more important to a business owner it would seem.

Not that I'm dismissing the points made in this thread - it's just that from a sales point of view potential customers don't seem to give a damn.

Evil Phil · 21-04-2010 8:01pm

I guess I meant sales value in the thread title.

Freddio · 21-04-2010 8:03pm

At the end of the day, surely SEO depends on the content, the number of hits you have and the number of links into you as opposed to the fact you may have alts but not titles in your <a href> tags

mneylon · 21-04-2010 8:15pm

Evil Phil wrote: »

Not that I'm dismissing the points made in this thread - it's just that from a sales point of view potential customers don't seem to give a damn.

Maybe the argument that a "valid" site won't need to be rejigged every 12 months for some new browser? eg. Chrome renders some things very differently than other browsers, so some "older" sites may not display as intended ..

cormee · 21-04-2010 9:31pm

Pixelcraft wrote: »

can I just point out that validity and accessibility are different things. I believe and implement both, but let's not get them confused please!

Who is confusing valid code with accessibility?

Pixelcraft · 21-04-2010 9:49pm

Yourself and nelly by my reading of the thread!

21-04-2010 9:49pm

Evil Phil wrote: »

Not that I'm dismissing the points made in this thread - it's just that from a sales point of view potential customers don't seem to give a damn.

Of course not. The mistake is ever thinking it was.

Web standards is about best practice construction techniques. Will having a building that applies to a high standard of safety and accessibility increase your sales, of course not. Is it still good business sense, yes.

Evil Phil · 21-04-2010 10:16pm

Freddio wrote: »

At the end of the day, surely SEO depends on the content, the number of hits you have and the number of links into you as opposed to the fact you may have alts but not titles in your <a href> tags

Yeah, but having you layout controlled by n number of nested tables is going to get you penalised too. I don't know if having a div nested in a listitem will, but correct use of H tags pushes up your page rank.

I agree my mistake was to give web standards saleable value. Or maybe it depends on the spin you give them I suppose. "Robust and future proofed design" pretty much covers it.

cormee · 21-04-2010 10:45pm

Pixelcraft wrote: »

Yourself and nelly by my reading of the thread!

No, I said:

"Another benefit of valid markup is accessibility. Malformed code may cause problems with assistive technology like screen readers. "

Nothing in that statement is meant to imply valid code = accessible website. Code validity however is checkpoint 3.2 for AA accessibility in the W3C's WCAG 1.0 - "3.2 Create documents that validate to published formal grammars", the reason being that malformed code may cause problems with assistive technology like screen readers.

nellyshark · 21-04-2010 11:32pm

Pixelcraft wrote: »

Yourself and nelly by my reading of the thread!

I was referring to my analogy of a site being similar to a bricks and mortar shop where there are building standards that buildings should be accessible and there are standards in how to operate (HACCP), etc and how clients would never allow for a drop in these standards but seem to think web standards is pie in sky

Valid HTML and business value

Comments