Apr 24th, 2009
To all our MediaPDX friends -
Welcome to our very first MediaPDX newsletter! We're really excited to keep up with you with our new monthly message. Here, we'll keep you posted on the latest goings-on, keep you informed with our latest articles, and keep you enticed with our latest contests!
We're probably going to tweak the layout and content as we go along, so please let us know what you like and what you don't!
First up, we have an excellent article written by our very own Samuel. In it, he details quite convincingly why you should get your web site's code cleaned up if you haven't already. If you have a site, this is a must-read!
Lastly, we have our monthly contest. There's a new one every newsletter and you've gotta scroll to the bottom to see what it is. Fabulous prizes await your setting foot in the ring!
Happy reading, y'all!
-- The MediaPDX Team
Top Reasons to Optimize Your HTML
Chances are you've never even looked at the code of your website. We can't blame you if you haven't - why would anyone outside the industry care? I'm not in construction and I've never busted out a wall to see what the support beams look like. I'm not a mechanic and I haven't popped the hood of my car in years (thank goodness!).
It sure is important, though. Your website's "support beams" could be dryrotting or its "engine" full of crud and you'd have no idea. You take your car in for regular oil changes - why not give your site the same treatment?
Clean coding practices will pay dividends manifold and help your site become the success you desire it to be. Fortunately, you've come to the right place! We keep up with the latest standards and won't stop working on your site until every page on it is 100% error-free.
Here's a quick rundown of the major benefits of a nice, bracing code revision.
Valid HTML Is a Search Engine's Friend
Search Engines can sometimes get lost in the Sargasso Sea of code some developers and (especially) WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver create. Having more code than content in your pages is a definite turn-off for search engines, whose attraction is well worth courting.
Error-filled code is also a big-time enemy of the search engines. Not only does it make it hard for them to index the content because it's more difficult to tell what is what, sometimes the code can be so unfriendly the search engine just gives up and goes somewhere else to find someone who'll play nice.
Sites coded with valid HTML play nice with the search engines!
Intelligent Code Is Your Audience's Friend
A lot of designers can make beautiful, sensational layouts that are simply stunning. So long as they're viewed on a PC. With the Firefox browser. And a monitor the same size as the person who made it. What about everyone else, though?
Coding a site that complies with the W3C standards is a big first step towards the land of accessibility. Would you turn a potential customer away because they owned a Macbook? Or used Safari to get to your site? What if they browse the internet on their iPhone?
With a tested, standardized coding structure, your site's chances of being impressive to all your audience are highly increased. This even includes your disabled visitors, such as those using screen readers to find their information.
Intelligently-coded sites help everyone feel welcome!
Standards-Compliance Is a Sturdy Foundation
Code revision isn't only good for the here-and-now, it's a great way to set yourself up for the future, as well. Wanna tack on a few extra paragraphs to your intro page? With a site coded smartly, that's no sweat. With a site teeming in redundant and ineffective code, it could literally take an hour.
Furthermore, it makes things easier for everyone working on your site. Site owners may have multiple teams working on their site at once or may bring the entire project to another company at some point. If your site was created in tune with the aforementioned W3C standards, you can be confident you won't encounter a Tower of Babel situation.
Standards-compliance streamlines the entire operation!
Clean Code Is an Investment in the Future
We've all seen far too many broken, hapharzardly-designed sites for our lifetimes. These sites, sadly, did not get the same carefully-created treatment their cleanly-coded brethren received.
Perhaps they were created with a proprietary technology that no longer supports them. Perhaps they were made by someone unfamiliar with the potential pitfalls of good web design. Perhaps they were simply abandoned. Whatever the cause, they're left junking up people's web experiences like debris on a highway.
Fortunately, if you choose to go the cleanly-coded route, your site will not only look like it's supposed to for all your visitors now, your site will perform as it should for its lifetime. The standards that have been developed will only be built upon, not altered, in the coming years. This means that your site won't be left behind while progress in the internet world marches on.
Cleanly-coded sites are good for life!
What really counts, however, is that optimized code just plain works better. With tuned-up code, your pages will load faster, your pages will work correctly more consistently and your site will age gracefully as the years go on.
Your visitors will enjoy their experience visiting your site more, and with the extra attention you'll be soliciting from search engines, their numbers will be on the rise, as well!
Contest! Contest!
O.k., we're making this one super easy.
Just print this out and bring it in and we'll give you one free hour of video transfer. That's it. Print it, walk in, tell us you want your videos put on a DVD, save some money.
Enjoy!