SimplyCast: Interactive Marketing Blog

Has anyone stopped you on the street lately and asked if your HTML is valid?

We are going to guess probably not.

But that does not mean it isn’t vital to your email marketing campaigns and the future growth of your business. Something as simple as a piece of incorrect code or an extra tag somewhere in your email can have a huge impact on the overall outcome of your message.

Basically, if you are sending out an HTML email message, you must have more text than HTML code in your email or you are likely to get flagged as spam.

For those new to sending out email marketing campaigns, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is what is added when you change fonts, add backgrounds insert graphics or add tables.

Using outdated or incorrect code is a major reason why email sent to domains such as MSN/Hotmail and AOL are blocked or delivered to bulk or junk mail folders.

Why are many ISPs so concerned about HTML code? You can thank the many spammers out there for that. HTML syntax and format errors are common tricks spammers use to foil standard content filters.

How can you check your own code?

The best way to validate your HTML code is to use an online HTML validator like this handy tool called the WDG HTML Validator.

After switching to the HTML view of your email in SimplyCast’s HTML editor, copy and paste the entire code, add it to the validator window and run it. From there you will see any errors or bad snippets of code that could give you big problems.

If you are still not sure why should validate your HTML code, you should also know that invalid code is rendered across a wide variety of browsers and the outcome is unpredictable.

Let’s say you are in the habit of creating your email content in a word processor like MS Word. A lot of extra code that you don’t want can be added to your email when you transfer it over if you are not careful.

In conclusion, incorporating valid HTML code ensures that you are meeting the expectations of both the users as well as your clients.

It is never too late to make validating HTML code part of your email marketing habits.