Better Code Means Better Results
Whether your company needs good search engine placements, fast loading times, or an accessible website, good code is at the root of it all.
The Organization of a Web Page Under the Hood
You don't need to be an expert in web design to understand the concept of how a good code structure can help aid in search engine placements and accessibility. Most web design companies create their websites in visual editors such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, and these programs simply aren't intuitive enough to arrange a website's code in a manner that is always beneficial.
Search engines read a website from the start of the code all the way down to the end of the code. They don't see the presentational side of a website such as images and colors, and this is why hand coding a website is crucial for search engine optimization: the most important content is placed at the very top of the code, even if that content doesn't appear to be the first on the page when it's viewed in a browser. Visual editors arrange the content in a way that is, well, visual. If you could convert a web page made by a visual editor into a book, its table of contents might look like this: Chapter 2, forward, chapter 1, chapter 3.
Lean and Mean
Hand coding a website ensures that there is absolutely nothing hidden on a website that doesn't need to be there, and if you know a little bit about search engine optimization, you are probably aware that keeping the amount of code to a minimum is important.
How This Ties in With Accessibility
Let's face it, the content you want search engines to deem most important on a web page is the content that your visitors are going to want to read first. Similarly, when visitors arrive at your site using a mobile or less capable browser (like a mobile phone's browser), the first thing they will see is the content they are looking for.
