A client will want pages that look good, meet their corporate image requirements and which appeal to users, reflecting how they wish to appear in the market.

They will want to be able to fix errors and to update content simply and quickly to maintain its accuracy and minimise maintenance costs.

The site will have to comply with current legislation. They will also want people to be able to find the site readily by searching in popular browsers and have a higher ranking than their competitors.

Those laid down by legislation will determine the extent to which good design and content can minimise the risk of complaint or worse - the main UK requirements being as set out under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Meeting w3c standards, though will not, in itself ensure that a site satisfies a whole range of regulations that can affect how an organisation promotes and sells its products and interacts with customers or comply with copyright law, for instance.

w3c standards will assist in the provision of good design, they will aid the production of a more accessible site and make it simpler, so less costly, to maintain but they no more than contribute to those aims. One aspect they will not affect is the ranking of a page on Google.