10 Coding Guidelines for Perfect Findability and Web Standards

Perfect findability and web standards can be achieved with the same means when it comes to coding.

Thus I compiled a very simple list of 10 coding guidelines for perfect findability and web standards everybody can easily memorize and implement:

  1. Less is more, do not use more code than necessary
  2. No inline CSS or scripts, try to separate content from appearance and behavior
  3. No huge styles and scripts in the head, externalize (use external files) everything as far as possible
  4. Use semantic code, make headline headlines (h1, h2, h3 etc.), make important terms bold, citation blockquote etc.
  5. Don’t use any redundant meta tags (only meta description is a must)
  6. Use Microformats to make your site machine readable by e.g. telling robots your name and address
  7. Use tables only for tabular data (like for basketball scores)
  8. Use bulleted or numbered lists, or use lists without displaying them as such.
  9. Use only degradable JavaScript (no JavaScript links)
  10. Do not load important content via JavaScript, always use plain HTML

In case you liked this article you will probably also like my list of CSS tricks.