E-Commerce & Web Designer Directory

Web Site Design, Ecommerce Services, Internet Marketing, Hosts

Search Engine Optimization : CSS - Maximum Benefits

Summary : Simply by using CSS, web developers can control everything from layout to font size, improve code legibility, reduce file size and improve search engine optimization.

What is CSS?

CSS, or cascading style sheet, is a simple file which controls a web page's appearance without compromising its structure. Simply by using CSS, web developers can control layout, font size, font color, link color and many other attributes on a web page. CSS also makes HTML coding much more readable and reduces the page size. The added bonus of using CSS is improved search engine optimization.

Why Use CSS and How to Use it Properly

If you don't use CSS on your web pages and you have many tables and content on them, chances are that your HTML file size will be quite big. The fact is that we live in a busy world, and people are not will to wait more than 5 seconds web page to load.

On the other hand, some web developers implement the CSS incorrectly. They code the CSS within the HTML code of an individual page, like this:

<html>

<head>

<title>My Page</title>

<style>

A

{

font-family: Verdana;

font-size:8pt;

color:black;

text-decoration:none

}

</style>

What is wrong with this technique? Well, imagine that you have site with more than 50 pages. One day, you decide to change the font and link colors on your entire site. You will have to edit ALL the pages, which will take time since your CSS appears in every file of your site.

A more efficient way of CSS development is to save your visual attributes in separate, external CSS file, and to link to that file from your HTML web page like this :

<html>

<head>

<title>My Page</title>

<link href="myStyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

Using this technique, you can change the look of your site within minutes, regardless of the number of pages, because your visual attributes are stored in ONE external CSS file. Edit that file, and you are done.

Benefits of using CSS

Which are the benefits of using CSS? The list is quite long, but below are only the most important reasons :

Your web page loads faster.
Your web page becomes more search engine friendly.
You can change you site's appearance within minutes.
You can write separate CSS file for hand held devices which will be called up instead of the regular CSS file.
You can write a separate CSS file for generating a printer friendly version of your site.

As any web developer can appreciate, CSS allows more efficient HTML coding. By using CSS, it is possible to avoid standard HTML commands like :

<font color="#0000ff"><font size=2>Product</font></font></font>

Granted, eliminating verbose lines of code reduces file size, but that is not the only benefit. By using CSS, the word "product" in the example will be moved closer to the top of the document. Search engine spiders will pick up more content and less code.

Imagine a web page containing a 3 column table. In viewing the HTML code, the calls creating the table come first, followed by your content, as shown in this example :

<table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

<tr>

<td width="381" height="150" valign="top" bgcolor="FFEDD4">

My Product

</td>

<td height="150" valign="top" bgcolor="FFEDD4">

When CSS is used, however, your code might look like this:

<div id="leftcontent">

My Product

</div>

Again your code is much clearer, and the content is moved on the top of your document, making your HTML page search engine friendly, and reducing your file size. Content is one of the most important factors in search engine optimization, and removing unnecessary code in your HTML creates a search engine friendly web page.

Validate it

The browser war is far behind us. The reality is that today, most people use Internet Explorer. Every qualified web developer knows the importance of validating code however. Not all browsers interpret the CSS on same way, and un-validated code risks a page appearing incorrectly, or not at all. Validate your CSS here: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

About the author : Zoran Makrevski is founder and CEO of SEO.Goto.gr.

E-COMMERCE & WEB DESIGNER DIRECTORY
Call 828-321-9036 about advertising in the Directory.
design@1234-find-web-designers.org

Free & Pay Directory Listings

Free Web Site Design Quote

WEB SITE DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT, WEBSITE TEMPLATES, LOGOS
Freelance Web Designer India | Small Business Web Design
Website Templates | Web Templates | Logo, Web & Graphic Designers
Web Development India | Online Marketing Company

E-COMMERCE, SHOPPING CARTS & SOFTWARE

INTERNET MARKETING
SEO India | Search Engine Optimisation | SEO India

WEBMASTER RESOURCES, SCRIPTS, PRINTING & PHOTOS
Webmaster Resources | Free Photos

HOSTS AND DOMAIN REGISTRATION
Cheap Web Hosting | Web Hosting | Affordable web hosting
Affordable Web Hosting

OTHER WEB RESOURCES
Teaching Golf | Golf Schools