Beginner’s guide – Benefits of have an HTML 5 website

HTML 5 is everywhere. There is a lot of talk about how great it is and how it is going to revolutionize the web. But, why do you want your web developer to use HTML 5? What are the benefits to you?

Semantics

The biggest single benefit comes in the form of semantics. Google and other search engines do not index the id tags of elements. ( ID tags are unique names given to web elements, they aid in targeting an element in CSS or JavaScript). With HTML 5 there are new elements that tell the search engine what their “function” is. So instead of using <div id=”header”>, we are now encouraged to use <header>. Although Google and the other Search Engines have not come outright and said so , it is not hard to imagine that these new elements are going to be heavily relied on to re-index the web. The Search Engines will be able to place higher importance on content based upon which element it is contained within. So potential Benefit: Search Engine Indexing.

HTTP Requests

HTT… what? Every time a website is loaded and an element is linked (so images , javascript files, css files etc..) the web browser needs to make another request from the server. So, imagine that you are the browser, you start your job by grabbing your list of to-dos ( the web page). As you read down your list, you come across something you don’t have. At this point you need to stop and go back and get another tool. This is what happens when you have too many HTTP requests.

Through the use of advanced CSS3 and HTML5 a talented web developer can cut back the amount of images needed to build out your website. This technique will lower your HTTP Requests and thereby speed up your web page loads. Potential Benefit: Page Load times and bandwidth usage.

End User Experience

What is the most important thing your website can do? Here is a hint….it starts with User and ends with Experience. User Experience is paramount on the web today, it is estimated that you have less then 3 seconds to give your user the information they want, if they can’t find it within that amount of time, they are gone.

HTML 5 cannot guarantee that you are going to retain your visitors but it can give you a host of tools at your disposal that WILL give your users a better experience. With HTML 5 you can add advanced drawings, animations, video and audio elements, but to me the most important new features comes in the form of forms ( yes.. pun intended). With HTML 5 there are new inputs that are made specifically for certain content, such as emails, and there are certain inputs that are made for certain functions, such as search. At the time of this writing, all the features are not fully supported across browsers, but they are backwards compatible which means if your browser does not support that feature it will simply ignore it. Potential Benefit: Better User Experience.

Summary

HTML 5 is definitely the wave of the future, we plan on embracing it fully at Cheeky Monkey Media. Admittedly, though there are some features that are not ready for Prime Time yet ( I’m looking at you GeoLocation) , but if your web development company is clever, they can still use HTML 5 and all it’s advanced features as long as they are aware of backward compatibility. In other words, if done properly users with modern browsers will have the benefit of the full HTML 5 experience while users with older browsers will be none the wiser because everything will still work fine.

About Robin Gupta

Myself Robin Gupta Director @ RobinGupta.Com, A leading seo services provider company. Robingupta.com was founded in 2007 with a vision of providing a comprehensive & well balanced Services, We have more than 350+ clients and still counting. We have helped thousands of websites into gaining their true potential. Our clients include many top companies from US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy and Many European Countries. Currently we owns more than 1500 Websites.