I’m proud today to announce to the world that Site Sketch 101 has been validated by the World Wide Web Consortium as valid XHTML 1.0 Strict.

When I first stopped by W3C’s validator, I was faced with over 180 major errors on home page. Yet after about 3 hours of carefully digging through the suggestions that it provided, I was able to receive the hearty approval of W3C.

I actually started out to earn the gold star for XHTML 1.0 Transitional which I’ve learned is a bit easier to obtain than the XHTML 1.0 Strict.  After accomplishing that first task, I then stepped it up and went after the Strict validation and the CSS validation.  I’m proud to say that I now what both.

I’m sure that some of you are sitting back and wondering what I’m talking about.  I know that if I would have read the beginning of this article about 2 years ago, I wouldn’t have a clue what I was reading.  Stick with me.  Let me teach you what you need to know to get going.

What is W3C Validation?

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international organization that develops the standards on which web pages are built.  It develops rules for coding and development that the online  community agrees to use in order to create a consistent online experience across browsers and across operating systems.

In other words, they are the organization that brings Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari web browsers into agreement to deliver the same browsing experience to people on each browser.

If a website is coded according to the standards setup by W3C then it should appear the same in all browsers.  If you’re a website designer then you’ve probably experienced the headache that is trying to get a web page to appear the same across multiple internet browsers.  Validating your site’s code according to the W3C standards is the first step to simplifying that sometimes daunting task.

Most of the variations in display that we see across browsers are simply the result of various browsers attempting to make their best guess at how to display broken or invalid code.  If your source code has unclosed tags or elements that aren’t universally accepted then they can display it however they want to.  If the code is valid, however, then it should appear the same in all browsers.

Why is W3C Validation Important?

There are, in fact, several reasons that you should take the time to validate your website to the standards of the World Wide Web Consortium.

• Validation creates consistency across multiple internet browsers.
• Validation supports better search engine listings.
• Validation is a sign of professionalism.

There’s really no wrong reason to get your site’s code to be W3C validated.

How do I Get Started With W3C Validation?

If you know anything about the basics of html then getting started won’t be difficult. Simply click through to the W3C Validator, type in the name of your website, and then follow the instructions that it provides you for resolving each issue.

If you have questions simply drop them in the comments section below or you can do like I did and ask your followers on Twitter.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how helpful some of my friends were.

I believe that one of the three fundamental principles for building a successful blog is to develop a brilliant design.  I understand that as bloggers many of you know very little about coding html, xhtml and css so I’ve decided that I’m going to work to provide you with one article each week where I’ll work to educate you on the basics of code.

Learning how to edit or write this code can be incredibly complex so I’ll be sure to make it as easy as possible to understand.  I promise that you’ll be able to pick it up.

Group Reflection

Has your site been validated by the World Wide Web Consortium? Why not?

How can I help you as you work toward creating a website with valid code?  What errors is the validator presenting you with?