How to have a “clean” markup, in a few easy bullet points:
- Avoid inline CSS
- Don’t repeat yourself
- Take advantage of inheritance
- Re-use classes when possible
- Use W3C validators to check for problems
- Use W3C validators again, to be extra sure
- Think in long-term thoughts
- Fast, not sloppy. Take your time. Don’t settle for “it works.”
- Make it easy in case someone else has to finish it
- Take into account: language, assistive technology, mobile browsing
- Do it right the first time.
- Aim for standards-compliant, problem-free, and search engine friendly
Creating a website is very intimidating, and deadlines or clients do not help. But, the key to a great website is to do it right the first time. This article is putting into words what everyone else knows, but may not consciously remember. A lot of these tips will be useful to me when I’m creating my HTML and CSS for my website. The idea of the W3C validator is really cool; I love online tools like that.
I never thought that sloppy coding would screw up search engine rankings. It makes sense now that I think about it, and it’s definitely good to know. Especially since any potential client would put an emphasis on their search engine ranking. Hey, even I want a great search ranking on my portfolio website. I don’t want some other ‘Megan Mungall’ to show up before me on Google. How embarrassing would that be?
I really liked this article. It was short and to the point. The author even bolded all of the important points! I’ll probably come back to this article when I’m working on my HTML and CSS, whether to get the validator info or read the (seemingly) commonsensical tips given.