We follow current best practices for web development so that our sites are fast-loading, extremely accessible to search engines, easy to maintain and scale, and work across all major browsers.
Our websites are custom-designed.
Since each site is built from the ground up — focusing on communicating a specific message — we cannot use design templates. Yet, we make use of a number of open source solutions to keep client costs down, while providing a unique and advanced website for individuals, small businesses, and corporate clients.
RustyDog Creative programs in PHP, an extremely popular programming language for web development. PHP works on both Microsoft and Linux servers, is installed by nearly every hosting provider, and is unburdened by licensing fees or restrictions. We have eliminated presentational HTML in favor of CSS, and we use unobtrusive JavaScript and Ajax to create an interactive user experience.
We follow current best practices for web development so that our sites are fast-loading, extremely accessible to search engines, easy to maintain and scale, and work across all major browsers. We employ a number of techniques to further decrease load times and optimize for search engines.
Web Standards and Best Practices
RustyDog Creative follows the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) standards for XHTML formatting. We believe in strict separation of content, presentation, and behavior in order to create websites that are easy to update and perform consistently across browsers and browser versions. We markup code so it works well across browsers, is easy to maintain, loads quickly, and is in the best possible format for search engines. These items might not be immediately obvious to the visitor, but will impact the success of the site.
We structure content with XHTML, handle the design with CSS, and control the user interactivity through unobtrusive JavaScript. By separating these components into separate layers, the look and feel of the site is controlled through a central source. This makes the site easy to update and maintain as the site grows. Plus, pages load quicker because of the reduction of code bloat and increased code-caching by the browser.
The ABCs: W3C, CSS and XHTML
When the internet first gained popularity, there were only a few browsers available so it was easy to test a website in each one. Today, there are hundreds of browsers, each with many revisions. By coding to agreed standards, RustyDog Creative ensures that our sites work on all compliant browsers and that the sites will continue to work even as the browsers change. The site will be more accessible to the minority of users who might normally have problems (such as visitors who use a non-traditional browser, such as a cell phone, a screen reader, or an older or security-sensitive computer that has JavaScript disabled.
Is it worthwhile it to build a site that works well for everyone, including the technology challenged? Absolutely! Their inclusion does not increase cost or development time — it is a byproduct of creating a website built to modern day best practices. Visitors benefit from decreased load times, search engines benefit from well-structured and properly formatted code, and site administrators benefit from the ease of maintenance. This all increases the lifespan of the website and decreases the long-term cost.