| To understand why good code is important, you | | | | entire website. This external sheet gets stored in the |
| need to understand how it gets used. The easiest | | | | browsers cache which means that it only needs to |
| way to check the code on a site is to fire up your | | | | load once for your entire website. How much smaller |
| browser and enter the URL. If it looks good in the | | | | would your files be if you removed all of your font |
| browser you are all set, right? Wrong. Chances are | | | | tags?Optimizing your code may mean more than just |
| that you use one browser to verify that the site | | | | HTML factors. If you use server side code such as |
| works, but what about a different browser? Does it | | | | ASP or PHP and especially if you are using a |
| look equally good in IE and Firefox? And here is | | | | database driven website, long lists may bog down |
| where many fall out... Turn off images and javascript | | | | your pages and push otherwise quick pages to a 60 |
| in your browser... this is what the search engines see | | | | second load time or more. This is a sure sign that |
| when they visit your site.If you are ready to drop | | | | your quick and peppy (empty) website has some |
| money into SEO or spend hours and days, weeks, | | | | underlying issues now that your internet empire is |
| months reading up on SEO to be competitive enough | | | | growing.Your Empire GrowsBy being online and |
| on your own... take the time to adjust your browser | | | | interested in marketing your site, you will come to |
| settings and actually see what they see. Can you | | | | learn that "content is king". Naturally your website will |
| follow links from page to page, does your site make | | | | grow as you seek to promote it and keep it as a |
| sense? Even this is not the full extent of what can | | | | useful resource on the web. Good code for growth |
| be done to test code, but if you make it this far and | | | | would need to be highly configurable and uniform |
| still have a usable, informative, entertaining website, | | | | throughout your pages.Good code will allow you to |
| then the search engines at least have a chance to | | | | remove sections of your site to place them into |
| see your site as you intended.If your site fails these | | | | external files. As your site grows and new sections |
| tests, then before you pursue the search engines as | | | | are added or removed, your navigation will change. |
| a means of promotion, you will need to fix your | | | | The easiest way to manage this over several |
| code. If you fail this set of tests, then your | | | | hundred pages is to be able to use a single file and |
| keywords, your links, and whatever else you do to | | | | include it into your pages using a server side language |
| 'optimize' your site is flawed.At the very least, good | | | | like PHP or ASP. This way, you can change the links |
| code is the kind of code that allows simple navigation | | | | in one file, upload it, and all of your pages will show |
| on your site regardless of images and javascript | | | | the new navigation menu. The same may hold true |
| (flash is a graphical language and counts as an image | | | | for the footer and header sections of your pages |
| multimedia). At best, good code is efficient and | | | | which can change often.With good coding, possibilities |
| follows the "less is more" principle.Less is MoreThe | | | | open up that are not available to poorly coded sites |
| robots exclusion standard is exactly that... an | | | | that work good on one browser, or several. Updates |
| exclusion. Many webmasters use the meta robots | | | | become easier, search spiders have an easier time of |
| tag to tell spiders to go ahead and index their page | | | | getting through your site, your pages load faster |
| and to follow the links that are on it. This is what | | | | which keeps your visitors happier which keeps them |
| spiders do naturally anyway. Eliminating this tag when | | | | at your site longer...Shawn Snarski is the owner of |
| using it to allow spiders will save you some code that | | | | which specializes in the optimization of code and |
| does not really need to be loading in browsers at all | | | | AutoMapIt Sitemaps which uses spider technology. |
| and spiders assume to be the case anyway.Another | | | | Being on both sides of this issue has led to a better |
| sign of unoptimized code is the use of the font tag in | | | | understanding of how spiders and websites interact |
| HTML. This and many other tags can be replaced by | | | | and how to optimize websites for visitors, servers, |
| a single external CSS stylesheet that applies to your | | | | and spiders. |