Validating Your Website + New infinFX Design
22 Comments April 19, 2007 / Posted in SEO/SEM, Web Development
I finally finished the redesign for my web development and SEO consulting company, infinFX. This is the first version of infinFX that I coded entirely in transitional XHTML and CSS.
After the site was finished, I validated all of the source code using the W3C’s XHTML Validator.
What is Validation?
According to the W3C:
Validation is a process of checking your documents against a formal Standard, such as those published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for HTML and XML-derived Web document types, or by the WapForum for WML, etc. It serves a similar purpose to spell checking and proofreading for grammar and syntax, but is much more precise and reliable than any of those processes because it is dealing with precisely-specified machine languages, not with nebulously-defined human natural language.
Why Should You Validate?
Non-valid pages rely on error correction by web browsers. Since not all web browsers are the same, while your page may look fine in one browser, it may appear smugly in another. By validating, you are ensuring your web site is fully web standards compliant and will appear (mostly) uniform across different browsers and operating systems.
Once your site has passed the validation test, you are awarded with a little validation badge that you can place on your site to show off to your readers that your page is standards compliant.
Optimizing infinFX for Search Rankings
Last week I posted an SEO Case Study highlighting some of the ways a page is made more search engine friendly. The company owner asked me to remove the company name from my blog as she doesn’t want visitors to visit my blog before her site, so that is why I reposted the article. The company web site, which was previously in Google’s supplemental index, is now ranked #2 for a search for the company name (which interestingly, is somewhat competitive as there are many companies of the same name).
Anyway, I have been working on better optimizing infinFX for the phrase “Scottsdale web design” as that is where my business is based and the local market is very competitive. I am happy to report that if you type in “scottsdale web design” into Google, I am now fluctuating between the bottom of the first page and top of the second page of SERPs. In the next few weeks, I am sure I will be ranked within the top 5 listings, consistently. On MSN, infinFX is ranked #1 for “scottsdale web design.”
Most of our business comes from referrals, so it will be provide for an influx of new clients when we start to rank well for local “web design” search results.
Coincidentally, today we received our first call from someone who found our company through Google. Apparently they typed in “e-commerce design in scottsdale” and found our web site and proceeded to call us. I quoted them a great price on an e-commerce setup and it looks like it will result in a new client. That is the benefit of SEO pure and simple - more people can find you.
Integrating a Blog into infinFX
Perhaps the biggest reason I wanted to redesign infinFX was so that it would be easy to turn a portion of the site into a Wordpress template as I plan on integrating a company blog very soon. The company blog will cover general marketing and web development tips. However, I will still be posting the majority of my web development articles on this site. The blog will actually feature a few guest bloggers, so if any of you are interested in guest blogging on the infinFX Web Dev blog, please contact me.
Rewriting the Copy
The final step for the infinFX web site will be rewriting a majority of the copy so that it will lead to higher conversions. I plan on installing Interspire’s SendStudio email marketing software here soon so that I am able to follow up with prospective clients on a regular basis and distribute a company newsletter.
Premium Web & Blog Design + Guranteed Satisfaction
Finally, if anyone is looking for web site and/or blog design, infinFX offers competitive rates and and guarantees client satisfaction.
Visit www.infinFX.com for more information…
Matt Blancarte
Josh Mullineaux
Seeing as how you mention that you are using XHTML, I think this article would be interesting. It basically says that there are no browsers that display XHTML correctly, not even firefox. It’s is an interesting read, if nothing else.
infinfx is looking pretty sharp. Nice improvement over the last one.
Good points about using valid markup. I just wish the little buttons the W3C provide for valid sites were a little sexier though!
Thanks Nate. I’m still on the learning curve with XHTML Validation. I often find codes which the validator is flagging as an error but when viewing the .php files I can’t see the issue. It looks to be in the form as suggested by the validator.
Is that common?
What are thoughts on the auto-clean utilities such as http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/ ?
Hey Nate,
The new site looks great. And nice targeting of your business for local search traffic. Good to see your SEO is already bringing in business!
Nate,
The best form of advertising is directional– and that is exactly what you’re optimizing for. Very smart. If someone is LOOKING to buy, half of your job is already done.
The new site looks great. I remember the first time we validated in XHTML/CSS a few years ago and what an accomplishment it was for us, congratulations!
– Scot
Even though 99% of the valid websites will be displayed OK, the fact that a website is valid will NOT ensure that it will be displayed properly by browsers… I’ve seen many display problems on valid websites.
I’d prefer a website with a couple of validation errors that displays right for 99% of the visitors rather than one perfectly valid but with issues in IE.
Hi Alan, thanks for the comment. Yes, you are right - that is why I said that by having a site validated, you are mostly ensuring it will display properly, but of course, that is not the case 100% of the time.
Hey John, thanks for stopping by. Yes, I also wish the W3C would spice up their validation badges with some web 2.0 sexiness.
you make me want to validate. (that just sounds odd…)
Nice new design
Just letting you know that I’ve favorited your blog on Technorati as a part of the Technorati Favorites Exchange.
Here’s my link.
http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://angelika1972.blogspot.com
Nate, oops, you’re right, I think I missed the word mostly.
coop: lol
Hey, when is infinfx going to come out with a formalized affiliate program…I have some ideas that that would be great for.
Great job with the results!
not to mention errors with the server that may come up…that’s why Nate’s servers are awsome…because they don’t show error pages!!!
That is a good idea and definitely on my list of “things to do.” What ideas do you have?
Added you.
Paper Bull, I have not used the validator clean up utilities. I need to clean up my blog’s code, however, as it is in no way “clean” CSS and XHTML. I am not sure if Wordpress has an issue with clean code.
Yeah - then I can stop earning whopping comissions.
interesting
Nice…
Just a quick note - I like what you’ve done with the infinfx website, very clean and crisp
A validated website also add credibility to your website.