When it comes to designing a website, HTML is surely the most popular tool for any web developer. But merely developing a website using this platform isn’t enough as you need to validate the HTML codes as this makes your website robust and keeps it in sync with the latest trends in the market.
What is Validation?
To start with you need to understand what the term validation means. It is nothing but a quality assurance check where several elements of your website such as the Syntax, Nesting etc. are checked against the latest protocols of the Internet.
Four Advantages of Validation
1. Zero Errors – Even the best of HTML programmers find it difficult to write absolutely flawless codes and thus you need a strong mechanism which allows you to detect the errors and rectify them. This is where an HTML validator comes so good as it pinpoints the errors which can affect the performance of your website and allows you to take corrective steps.
2. Browser Compatibility – It goes without saying that your website needs to be compatible with different web browsers and validating HTML code help render web pages uniformly across different browsers. This process ensures that errors which exist in the code hindering the correct to display on specific browser are corrected.
3. Ease of Maintenance – Validating the HTML codes eases the maintenance of your website. HTML and CSS are globally accepted platforms for designing websites. Creating Web pages or applications according to a widely accepted coding style makes them easier to maintain, even if the maintenance and evolution is performed by someone else.
4. Search Engine Rankings –Most of the website derive their traffic through search engines such Google, Yahoo and Bing and it thus becomes important that you create a search engine friendly website. HTML validation does away with the errors which help spiders easily crawl through your website and results in faster search engine indexing and draws targeted traffic to the website. Now that you know the advantages of HTML validation for your website you also need to know the tools which help you validate your website easily.
Four Tools Used for HTML Validation
1. W3C HTML Validation Service– One of the most popular tools this validates HTML, XHTML, SMIL, MathML file formats. You can validate easily using the URL or uploading the files.
2. Firefox HTML Validator Add-on– Firefox users love it as this allows them to validate HTML files within the browser. This tool displays errors on the status bar of a HTML page.
3. CSE HTML Validator Lite– This free tool is very user-friendly and something which most beginners prefer. It can easily validate HTML and XHTML documents and help you get rid of errors.
4. NetMechanic HTML Toolbox– With this tool, you can easily find and repair bad syntax and HTML tags which create issues in the appearance and functionality of your website.
This guest post is written by David Gordon who is working as an online marketer with MarkupBox.com, a specialized PSD to HTML conversion company, backed with years of experience and diligent professionals. MarkupBox offers PSD to HTML, PSD to Joomla and other conversion services like PSD to Wordpres, PSD to Drupal, PSD to Email and much more.