> Don't tell them about standards - their eyes will glaze over. > > Just tell them you'll build them : > 1) a fast-loading site that > 2) the search engines will love and that > 3) will be easy to update and 're-skin' whenever needed and > 4) uses the current best-practice web dev practices > > Don't sell clients standards - sell only the benefits. If they ask > (most won't in my experience) then you can go a bit deeper. I totally agree with this - the more succinctly you state your case, the more likely the client is to agree with it. However, for those cases when I need to do a little further explaining/convincing, I like to have some good articles bookmarked to back up my case: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/index.html http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000266.php http://jessey.net/blog/archive/entries/?id=144 http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archive/2004/06/web-standards-roi http://www.webstandards.org/learn/articles/web_standards_for_business/ http://www.maccaws.org/kit/way-forward/#benefits (thanks, Jan!) -- sarah adams web developer & programmer portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com blog: http://hardedge.ca