Which Coding for Your Corporate Website?
When websites were first built, they were coded in html, which formatted the page and your text to look nice. Html is still used, and is good for many websites, but is it good enough for a corporate website?
You need to have an idea of the preferences before you start asking for quotes from web designers because it will help you pick a good designer. It is worth pointing out that a firm that specialises in graphic design is unlikely to have the depth of knowledge needed to select the best form of code for your site.
The main alternatives for a corporate website are php or asp, although Flash can be used but is quite useless if you want your site ranked in Google, because the search engine robots or bots cannot read Flash. It is true that you can add extra text in html at the end of the page for the search engine bots, but that is still not very successful. So, if the web design companies say they will build your site completely in Flash, run a mile! And find someone else.
Your site can also be based on JavaScript. Now, there is nothing wrong with having Javascript on the pages, but these should be for specific jobs, such as to conceal your email address. JavaScript is not read by the search engine bots either.
Whatever code you use, you should make sure that there is not a mass of code and little text on the pages, as the search engines don’t like that; they think you are doing something underhand if it is almost all code.
So that leaves us with html, php or asp. Asp is probably what you will want if you have a huge database of, say, 10,000 products on your site. Otherwise, php is the best code for a number of reasons. First, it enables the designer to put all the common items in one file, and call it up with an include command whenever it is needed. This simplifies and speeds up design.
Another benefit of php is that when the page is loaded, the code looks just like html, because the include files show then content in them, not just a link to the file. This makes it user friendly.
Php can also be used when a database is required so it is a very versatile form of coding, which is ideal for most websites. However, if you have only a few pages on your site, it is probably simpler to use good old html, which works very well.
