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Have you ever gone out of your house and made the trek to the back woods to cut down a few trees for firewood? So maybe it’s the 21st century and the number of people who have done this is less than in years past, but not long ago I was out behind my house working with my old, dull axe at getting a large rotted maple tree stump out of the ground. The work was long, exhausting and painful, but in the end I stood triumphant with one less stump in my back yard. I was proud of the work I accomplished, but I would of probably been able to get the job done much quicker with less of the “exhausting and painful” if I had taken a little time before starting to sharpen the blade of my axe.

You may be asking yourself how dull axes and stumps have anything to do with Elexicon or services we offer, but I submit to you that your website isn’t much different than an axe. Both are tools that do no good unless utilized by the owner. Likewise, both an axe and a website can become dull or less effective with time if not properly cared for.

At Elexicon, we pride ourselves with putting together state-of-the-art, industry-standard websites using technology and best practices that are on the forefront of what’s current. The same was true 10 years ago when Elexicon was first created, and the same will continue to be true years down the road. Although this is true, the same practices and techniques that we used when we first started have evolved with the times to make sure that our clients are kept on the “cutting edge.”
In this sense, websites can be like an axe. When we hand-craft and build a site and it goes live, it’s like a brand new axe straight from the hardware store— it’s shiny and new and sharp, able to do what it was intended to do quickly and precisely. However, in the same way that use and misuse of an axe causes it to dull and become less effective, so does neglect and lack of optimization lessen the effectiveness on your website over time. Indeed, though the site will still work much like a dull axe “still works,” getting the job done can become cumbersome and slow.

A good example of this was the changeover from building websites from a table-based system to a more current div-based system. Table-based websites can be, and are still, used today in some cases, but what many people don’t realize is how much easier and clean it was to design and build or update a website in a div-based structure where appropriate. It also became much easier to create stylistic and information updates globally throughout the site quickly and cleanly. The code read quicker and became easier to trouble-shoot for bug, thus lowering maintenance time. Today div-based websites are really an industry standard.

This is only one of many examples of how new web technology and coding practices have either replaced or updated existing systems that are used, most of which provide a more dynamic, intriguing experience for visitors to your website.

Part of what we do at is Elexicon is always learning or researching these new practices so that we will be equipped with the means necessary to build a state-of-the-art website, or to update an existing site with new and exciting tools for all of our clients. Whether you want to upgrade with e-commerce capabilities or to start from scratch with something completely different, know that we will make sure you have the sharpest tool in the shed.

» This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 3:06 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.