xHTML Conversion Service
We can take your existing HTML pages and convert them to xHTML/CSS and make sure that they adhere to W3C standards. Your pages will look almost identical after the conversion. So, why should you do this? Your pages look fine in your browser. People aren't complaining. Who cares if it takes a little longer to load? Why bother changing anything?
People who can't view your site won't complain, they'll simply go somewhere else. You'll eventually need to make changes to your site. Do you really want to dig back into that complicated morass of table cells adjusting and readjusting widths until it all looks good again? Wouldn't you rather focus on content and let the layout handle the details? Convert to xHTML/CSS.
Improved Maintainability
Consider a typical HTML page where the layout is controlled by embedded tables and other formatting elements. This is an example of such a page. There are all sorts of extraneous tags strewn about that have nothing to do with the content of the page. These elements exist solely to position elements artificially. Without CSS the formatting is not only complex, but also fragile. Changes can move things about, causing all sorts of ripples just to get things back to looking right.
By converting from this typical formatting technique to an xHTML/CSS solution, your web page code can go from this:
to this:
Notice how much smaller and simpler the second example is compared to the first. No tables are used in the second example, yet the appearance is almost identical. Without tables, the page even renders faster. In a page load test performed on the two example pages, the original page loaded in an average of 1.986 seconds. The xHTML page loaded in a significantly shorter time of 0.895 seconds. On one of the sites we converted, the code was reduced about 12 to 1. As the code is reduced, load performance improves.
This is due to the fact that all the layout is removed from the content and placed in CSS. Instead of having numerous FONT tags littered throughout your page, the fonts are defined in the CSS. Consider wanting to change the font used in all of your section titles. Without CSS you would need to make sure you changed every FONT tag in every section title. With CSS you change the CSS file and all the section titles are changed.
Now consider you want to move your sidebar to the right instead of the left. In CSS this can be accomplished without even changing the HTML. This allows the design to change without recoding HTML. This gives the designers the ability to focus on design and not coding. Content can change, but the layout is maintained without repetitive code embedded in your content. Non-developers can produce content with a minimum of training. Developers can take raw content and produce pages faster and with less effort. Pages can be added simply, yet maintain the site's overall look. The ability to change is crucial in a website since a static site loses visitors.
Improved Performance
The actual transfer rate will often drop substantially since less data is transferred. The pages will display correctly in more and more modern browsers without the use of platform specific hacks. Most browsers are designed to display these pages without any platform/browser specific methods; they look the same on more browsers.
Improved Layout Control
As you want to change the look of things you can use a common CSS file. By changing that one file you can change the overall look of the site. You need not edit every page of your site, just the one design control page.
Improved Consistency
By using a common CSS file you can control much of the site from a single place, thus providing a more standard layout on all pages. When users see a standard way of using your site, they have an easier time navigating your site. This does not preclude you from having page specific layout. Multiple CSS files can be used and how they are applied collectively is what the C in CSS stands for (Cascading).