Businesses and organizations who take pride in the professionalism of their online presence set a standard well above competitors who opt for cheap websites built with sloppy, hacked up, and unpredictable markup code.

Standard compliance online translates into the highest quality workmanship and most technically skilled web development.

Clients and competitors will know your business does not cut corners, both online and and in your brick and mortar market.

Your site will be cross browser compatible and cross device compatible:

If a webpage of your website validates per W3C Web Standards, it should render gracefully and predictably across viewing devices from PC's to Mac's, iPhones to Androids, Netbooks to iPads, and even televisions. Reduce or eliminate surprises when visiting your website on your phone.

Your website will be backward and forward compatible:

True, formalizing web standards, or "recommendation" by the W3C is a lengthy and very detailed process. Once a web specification is standardized, rest assured it is backward and forward compatible.

This means when the browsers update their software, and your clients and site visitors download the latest version, your site will continue to render properly and functionally. This means your site visitors will find, read, and buy from you without obstacles. This translates into higher conversion rates and consummated shopping cart transactions.

And that, as every successful website owner knows, translates into increased revenue...and profit . So maximum ROI .

You will reach a wider market and convert competitive share: By choosing a Web Standard Compliant and Accessible website, you will serve a wider market by accommodating handicapped, visually impaired, and other potential new customers who need accessibility features to efficiently peruse the web with assistive technology such as voice enabled browsers, text browsers, and other assistive hardware devices designed for blind and / or mobility impaired end users.

Did you know that 8% to 10% of the total general population is disabled or living with some form of handicap? These figures not only equate to nearly 1 out of every 10 people, but mobility or vision impaired buyers are more inclined to shop online with assistive devices than visit a brick or mortar location which could require special transportation, equipment, or the help of eye dogs for the blind.

Save Money on future website updates and growth: By choosing a Web Standard Compliant Design Process, your future web development needs will be drastically streamlined and simple.

Future website modernization and updates can be achieved by modification of the Cascade Style Sheet. Growing your website with and accessible and standard compliant webpages will be significantly streamlined by using established templates built to W3C specifications. You will save money on maintenance and development costs.

You can count on obsoleteness-proof markup: Unlike proprietary web applications such as Flash and MS Silverlight, which are destined for a short shelf life, Html has been the core web language for over 14 years.

Its staying power is assured by the W3C and Google's support of open source, free, and nonproprietary web publishing languages supported by some of the world's most powerful corporations and Institutes of Higher Learning.

IUnleashed creativity ...compliantly. Increased Speed and Search Engine Friendliness: Html5 and CSS 3, already in use by San Diego Web Design Studio, offer enhanced and streamlined capabilities for streaming video, streaming audio, canvas drawing, and self-refreshing web forms...and fast... much faster loading than heavy loading Flash or other overly complex proprietary applications. No special plug-ins or applications necessary ...any standard browser can render your website's media with the latest open source web coding.

I Improved SEO Performance...Better Search Engine Ranking Organically: Save money on speculative sponsored search advertising. When your website is built to Web Standard Compliance, expect to be rid of excessive header scripting, redundant markup, unnecessary table tags, and other obstacles that impede or completely obstruct search engine robot crawling and indexing. Your website will rank and perform better organically on search engines than competitors 9 whose sites feature search engine accessibility and indexing problems.

I Hiring the Best Web Developers is a Given when insisting on Web Standard Compliance: Often businesses embarking on new web projects don't have much interest in the technical details, nor in wading through a vast abundance of information to learn how to hire web professionals with the proper skills. By requesting W3C compliant webpages, business owners and marketing managers can filter out less skilled web providers by setting the bar at W3C recommendations

Increase the longevity and endurance of your website: When business owners and clients make uninformed decisions on hiring and deciding which website building blocks and standards to maintain, they often find it necessary to reconstruct and re-design their sites within a year of a poor hiring decision. By insisting that at least the homepage validate according to current W3C recommendations, the website will have a much longer life span than a site built without respect for professional coding standards.

Purpose: The W3C's intended role is promotion and oversight of uniform best practice standards for web publishing. This entails advocating , organizing, researching, and ultimately formalizing the plethora of protocols, methods, servers, programs, coding languages, software, hardware, media, connectivity, data, applications, platforms, mediums, and other means of building and using the Internet.

Membership: Representative Membership in the W3C can be cost prohibitive for individuals, small freelance design companies, and start-ups in need of seed money. In some cases, work experts may receive "invitations" to join for special projects and where their expertise may be useful and under-represented by core members. Access to the findings and "recommendations" derived from the W3C's work is made public at no cost. Access to specific communication logs related to routine dialog leading to decisions by consensus is reserved for members only.

Global Support: W3C boasts a list of conglomerate deep-pocketed and powerful names that read like a who's who list in Fortune Magazine. The current W3C membership list is populated with International Corporate names such as Hewlett Packard, IBM Corporation, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Samsung, Stanford University,Yale, LG Electronics, Boeing, Nokia, Mozilla, Opera, Yahoo, Apple, Adobe, Sun MicroSystems, PayPal, Microsoft, Google... the list doesn't end with the names of powerful Technology Brands & International influence .

Pharmaceutical giants Merck & Co., Pfizer Inc., are just a few heavy hitters adding clout to W3C's exclusive membership roster ...financial powerhouse Dow Jones is a member. Web Developers and Design firms resistant to W3C compliance are up against the stealth of a powerful organization. Web Standards are the vested interested of global leaders . Acceptance and respect for the value of web Standard Compliance really is the softer, easier path...not to mention the professional and sound business choice. Good sense will save cents, when it comes to web development planning and implementation.

W3C Host Sponsors: The W3C is named after the three words that begin with the letter "W"; World Wide Web, the trailing letter "C" is acronymous for the title word "Consortium". W3C just happens to be host sponsored by three of the most prestigious Higher Learning Institutes in the world;

• MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• The French National Research Institute
• Keio University of Japan

Filling the role of conservator of the web and what is published online is a complex role. The next section provides an overview of in-scope subjects, etc.

The W3C's main areas of concern, or "charter", include, but are not limited to:

• Mobile Web Standards
• Semantics (XML, RDF, Owl, Dublin Core, Custom Vocabularies, etc.)
• Valid Markup [please see common coding languages of interest in next paragraph:]

W3C In Scope Web Languages: The W3C is concerned with creating "Standards" of usage for the following Programming Languages and Source Codes:

• Valid Code, per W3C Web Validation Tools
• Semantics (XML, RDF, Owl, Dublin Core, Custom Vocabularies, etc.)
• Accessibility, Section 508 ( ex: Handicapped and Vision Impaired Adaptation )
• Cross Browser Consistency and Compatibility
• Extensibility
• Forward Compatibility
• Backward Compatibility
• Mobile Web Standards
• User Friendliness (Site Architecture, Hierarchy, Url Names, etc.)

W3C In Scope Web Languages: The W3C standardize fields include, but are not limited to, usage of the following Programming Languages, Web Mark Up, and Source Codes :

• Html
• xHtml
• XML
• CSS
• xSLTl
• DOM
• SVG
• MathMLl
• c-Html

W3C Terminology: The W3C documentation replaces the term "Standards" with the word "Recommendations".

The standardization process is described in W3C documentation as the "Recommendation Process".

Often, the valid syntax for individual properties is referred to as "specifications", and relates to criteria established for various elements and tags.

This terminology demonstrates the W3C's acknowledgement that the language and programming of the web is not "ruled" or "controlled" by any entity or organization.

No specific person or entity is "in charge" of allowing or disallowing web usage for legal purposes. In other words, crime on the web is regulated, but commerce, methods, usage, and freedom of speech are not subject to dictatorship .

W3C Process of Standardization: The W3C Committee members submit recommendations, or specifications, regarding validation criteria for individual processes, or properties, thus initiating the documentation and voting process among committee members. Internet related organizations and corporations assign representatives to the W3C Panel to participate on their behalf, and participate in a way that protects their web interests.

W3C Recommendation Submissions: The W3C Committee members submit recommendations, or specifications, regarding validation criteria for individual processes, or properties, thus initiating the documentation and voting process among committee members. Any W3C Member is eligible to submit Recommendations to be Standardized for Validation criteria.

W3C Recommendation Submission Notes: If a recommendation proceeds past the submission process, a "note" or "document", is drawn up and published as a "Work in Progress". Publicly posting a recommendation "Note" in no way endorses a concept, nor ensures that the recommendation will progress any further than this 2nd step in the standardization process. A note can be edited, updated, replaced, or labeled "obsolete" at any time.

W3C Working Group per Recommendation: If a recommendation submission survives past the preceding two steps and makes to the 3rd step, a "working group" is formed of W3C members who have an interest in developing a standard for the submission. The Working Group will create a "Working Draft" pertaining to the submission at this third stage in the process.

W3C Working Draft per Recommendation: At this fourth stage of the submission process toward standardization, a "Working Draft", created by the interested group of members in Step 3, will be posted on the w3.org website. At this point, the W3C will invite public feedback and commentary. A working draft, like a note, can be rendered obsolete, revised, adapted, or terminated at any time. It is not to be used as a reference or guideline, but rather as a specification under consideration that can be removed at any time. Once the working draft becomes a "Proposed Recommendation", if it proceeds past Working Draft status, it will need Tim Berner Lee's approval to become a Standard Recommendation, which will outline the specific criteria for validation per the specifications submitted and approved.

w3c summary Web Standards, which they refer to as "Recommendations", rather than "rules". This approach exemplifies the free and open nature of the web, and emphasizes that no organization nor entity (with the exception of the FCC and organizations against activity as it relates to actual crimes and fraud), is in charge of the Internet. It is not governed nor regulated by any commercial enterprise.

id="web-standards-project"> wasp | web standards project: It is somewhat of a mystery, at the time of this writing, to determine what the "a" letter in the Web Standards Project acrimoniously represents [and remains a mystery 6 months later upon publishing].

The Web Standards Project was established in 1998 and is a strong supporter of Web Standards. WASP seeks to influence businesses and educational institutions to increase knowledge and understanding of the benefits of Web Standard Compliant Website Design. Whereas the W3C is plainly written for technically skilled web professionals, WASP's approach is consumer and curriculum focused.

wdg | web design group: The Web Design Group is becoming outdated, but has been a vocal advocate for Standardized Web Design since 1996. The Web Design Group website offers an array of useful tools such as a link checker, a CGI check tool (cgi-eye), online validators for Html and CSS, as well as Style Guides and suggestions for use of images, accessibility optimization, and more.

wsg | web standards group: The Web Standards Group is another established and avid supporter of Web Standardized Markup for publishing documents on the web. The Web Standards Group advocates responsibility in Web Development and targets the technically skilled internet professional to uphold and convey the value of Standard Compliant Markup Code.

San Diego Web Design Studio is a member of the Web Standards Group, the Web Design Group, and the Web Projects Group. We also maintain an "invited experts" membership in the W3C.

"Web Standards reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any site published on the Web."

Call us for any of your website needs, as well as mobile web design and application development services. We'll get you mobilized! 619.504.0450