> The problem is that many small/micro businesses don't see it > (y)our way. They only see the shiny coat of paint, not the rust > underneath it, or the engine under the bonnet. Bombarding them > with technical jargon isn't going to help. They just see a web > page in their browser. It either looks good or it doesn't.
So you have to tell them - without using all the jargon - that you will build a site using the latest techniques, which will be simple to maintain, use less bandwidth and be easier to redesign in future than the site built by the next guy. Every prospect will have to be approached differently, and yes you're right basically none of them ask for standards/accessibility/etc. I'd also point out that I'd never say "you should hire me because I do valid XHTML 1.0 Strict with separated style and content layers, using valid CSS and some unobtrusive DOM scripting to add a gracefully-degrading behaviour layer!" (unless of course I was asked directly, which has happened). I am talking about the business case, not the exact way you go pitch that business case. > > # maintenance > > In my experience, standards-compliant sites are far easier (hence > > faster and cheaper) to maintain > Only if the person maintaining it understands standards in the > first place. It's no use to a FontPlague jockey who wants to > maintain his/her own site. I don't think it's a given that a frontpage user gets no benefits. If they can add a new item using an h? and a p, rather than an entire nested table, then it's going to be easier no matter how you do it. > > small business really need to minimise costs. Every dollar counts. > Yep, so they want to maintain the site themselves. See above. Ultimately if they're doing it themselves it's not your problem either way. If they are paying you to do it; then they can relax knowing that you're not wasting their money. > > # lower bandwidth > > Many small businesses have a very small web budget and very very low > > bandwidth on their hosting. > Nearly all my customers are on a very cheap plan with (virtually) > unlimited bandwidth, so perhaps the rest are paying too much. Depends what's "cheap" for the company in question, I guess. > Of course, having 1MB of graphics or flash on the home > page isn't going to help, but that's not a standards issue. I would say that optimising pages is actually part of a standards-based approach. I don't split hairs over which bit is technically a *standard* and which bit is just doing a good job. It's part of the package. If you do want to take a pure standards line, then yes ok it's outside scope. > Sure, a flash-only or frames based site is not SEO friendly, but > I have seen no clear evidence that a clean, Strict (x)html site > gets any better treatment than a site with tag-soup. There are > many other factors that influence SEO, but this is of course not > the place to discuss those. I didn't say it has a massive advantage over tag soup, just that a benefit of standards is that it will have good search engine visibility. Besides, there is some anecdotal evidence (http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2006/01/the-roundabout-seo-test) that well formed documents have a slightly better time in search engines. So if we're being really technical, it's better. In any case, the client is hardly going to argue the toss between valid XHTML and tag soup. But you don't want them going for all-flash, all-graphics, etc. > > # accessibility > Many are either unaware, don't care or are willing to take the > chance. Besides, a standard compliant website is not necessarily > more accessible than a site with tag-soup, although it may help. Didn't say it was a silver bullet, but again it's part of an overall approach. > > # usability > Standards compliant does not necessarily equal usable, nor does > tagsoup necessarily equal unusable. Which is what I meant when I said "Not strictly a standard..." :) > True, but many of them don't plan that far ahead. They should; and if they don't and you've been hired then you should be helping them plan ahead. There are plenty of other businesses out there that take on the relevant forward planning aspects of a job since the client doesn't know they have to. If an electrician wires up your house without getting you to put in some extra loops to add more power points later on, they're not doing their job right. If a mechanic puts crap tyres on your car, knowing they'd wear out in two months, they're not doing their job right. > > Small businesses often have to prove that everything they do is better > > than the big businesses... so their website needs to reflect that. > Define "better", from the (non web design) small business owner's > point of view. I think that's what this whole thread is about... Faster to update, cheaper to run, lasts longer, more flexible. On a more general level I was talking about that less tangible "better job, better value" vibe that you get when you're dealing with a real master of a trade. You know it when you see it. Not all businesses care about it, some do. Those that do should respond to that argument. > Bert Doorn, Better Web Design > http://www.betterwebdesign.com.au/ > Fast-loading, user-friendly websites OK, so how do you define better? :) cheers, h -- --- <http://www.200ok.com.au/> --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
