Is your Web site W3C compliant? If not, call us tomorrow. Do you know what W3C compliant means? If not, call us yesterday.
Why the urgency? Because if your Web site is not W3C compliant, your marketing dollars will go to waste. Your organic and paid search engine marketing efforts will come up woefully short.
W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium. It's mission:
"To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web."
Early on, software companies--Microsoft most notably--almost always released proprietary products that did not necessarily interface with other, competitive, software products. And, because the programming was proprietary, manufacturers could charge for add-ons and upgrades, providing a steady stream of aftermarket revenue.
Years back, Linux challenged this traditional model with "open source" programming, which made source code accessible and free to any user. Recently, open source has taken off and is gaining unprecedented momentum with software developers across the globe. One of the biggest attractions of open source is wider usability. To quote W3C again--
"In order for the Web to reach its full potential, the most fundamental Web technologies must be compatible with one another and allow any hardware and software used to access the Web to work together. W3C refers to this goal as “Web interoperability.” By publishing open (non-proprietary) standards for Web languages and protocols, W3C seeks to avoid market fragmentation and thus Web fragmentation."
For Web site design, adhering to W3C standards is critical for effective SEM.
Organic search. Search engine spiders are apt to overlook Web pages when HTML code is not W3C compliant. If your Web site is invisible to the major search engines, it will be invisible to your customers.
Paid search. A pay-per-click (PPC) campaign can generate an enormous amount of qualified traffic and new business. But what if a prospect clicks on your ad but then can't read your Web page because it doesn't load properly on his browser? There once was a time when Web pages could be programmed to run on Internet Explorer, period. Today, Firefox 1.5 and other open source browsers have significant market share and continue to grow in popularity. Your Web site needs to incorporate W3C standards to be viewable by all your potential customers.
Maintaining SEM effectiveness in the midst of rapidly evolving technology is no easy task. Employing W3C standards will help--don't overlook them.
