Throwing away them dirty, old <TABLE>'s
Code Optimization
You may not wish to completely re-design your web site. In fact, you may have no reason to. If you have a functional design that makes navigation intuitive and enjoyable, and is pleasing to the eye, you have no reason to change that. But what about the code underneath the design?
A lot of developers today still do not understand the basics of web standards or semantics. An example of this, are the many hundreds of thousands of web sites that are still being laid-out using tables. The HTML <table> tag serves one purpose - to display tabular data. That is to say, data from a spreadsheet, or simply a list of things with one or more columns of data.
When developers use this perfectly suited function for a purpose it was never intended to fulfill, things get messy. A table-based layout can be up to 3 times as large in size as a standards-compliant layout. If the pages on your site have an especially large amount of information, size becomes an even more important issue - bandwidth.
Tables also make your website difficult to maintain. You can not simply change the width of your sidebar, or align a column the opposite way, or change the spacing on certain items, because that code is static and must be completely re-written! What about redesign time? You need an entirely new layout code! I have a wonderful demonstration of the flexibility CSS provides. In the menu bar on this website, you will notice 3 links, D, R, and B. Have you tried seeing what they do? Click one. Are the colors different? The graphics different? The web pages aren't any different. In fact, the only thing that has changed are the CSS files and a couple of graphics. When the entire presentation and design of your web site are seperated into one single file, there is no limit to the flexibility of your design!
By replacing your old HTML code and table layout with fresh, standards-compliant XHTML and use CSS for the layout, you can effectively reduce your file sizes signifigantly. The entire design of the site can be quickly and easily manipulated without having to even touch the HTML code.
Standards compliant XHTML code allows your web site to be accessible by virtually any one, using any kind of software. Mobile devices often strip meaningful information from classic table-based layouts, effectively ruining the design and presentation of your site. Disabled visitors using screen readers often have more difficulty finding information when trying to navigate through a table-based web site.
The most important business decision to make when chosing a professional web design company is value. With CSS, regular maintanence, updates, and redesigns can be done in much less time, saving you a lot of money. With guaranteed compatibility and accessibility, you can rest easy knowing the world can easily enjoy your web site.