Abstract
This paper discusses the importance of implementing professional standards as well as the proper use of meta tags in web design. With the emergence of different browsers that have new versions regularly coming out and new tools that developers use for coding and designing web pages, this paper aims to show how the standards make things easier for the users, web developers, users, and web designers. This is especially considering the fact that more and more content is made available over the World Wide Web and that more and more people rely on the World Wide Web for their information needs.
With the advancement in technology, particularly in the field of search engine optimization where Search engines like Google implement their own algorithms for creating their own web site descriptions, the use of meta tags may seem outdated (“Professional Standards,” n.d.).
Nevertheless, using meta tags is still a good practice in optimizing a web page for search engines. Search engine spiders crawl on websites to gather information about each page of the website. The information gathered is then used by the search engines to create the SERPs or the Search Engine Results Page (Ross, 2009).
Keywords and descriptions are the two types of meta tags. Search engines use the keywords in ranking a web page in comparison with similar web pages on the SERPs. They use descriptions, on the other hand, to give web users an overview of the information that can be found on the web page.
When used effectively, keywords and descriptions can help drive traffic into a web site and make the web site more accessible to users. It is then more effective to use a few significant keywords than to use many that are not relevant to the web page content.
Although some search engines are capable of generating their own descriptions for use on the SERP, it is still better for web designers to provide their own descriptions for the web pages, as these are bound to be more accurate and relevant to the content of the web page. Aside from the web page’s title, this description is the only information that users can get about your web page on the SERP and this will become their basis for visiting your site or not (Ross). It is also more effective to keep the description to two lines long as this is usually the description length that SERPs display for each web page on the SERP.
Compliance with professional standards for web design is just as important. In general, they help lower the cost of production and simplify the web development process. They also ensure the accessibility of the web site to more users and their compatibility with various Internet devices such as browsers and mobile devices (“WaSP,” 2006).
Users are unable to view web pages if they’re not using the correct web browsers. As for the designers and developers, it would be too costly for them to create different versions of the same web page to ensure that they have a compatible version for each browser. Alternatively, they’d have to choose which browser they would like their web site to run on; in the process losing potential visitors who might be using other types of browsers.
In addition, the continued use of non-standard markup language fails to provide users with the functionality and appeal – in other words, experience -- that they would otherwise enjoy had newer and standard markup language been used. Moreover, this can – sooner or later – render a web site useless – when the time comes that the markup code used is no longer supported by the current browsers.
References
Professional Standards It/237 – Intro To Web Design. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Professional-Standards-It-237-Intro-To/379067
Ross, C. (2009). Professional standards. Retrieved from http://chadlross.com/Articles/Web-Standards/Professional-Standards
WaSP: Fighting for Standards. (2006). Retrieved from http://www.webstandards.org/about/mission/
