CSS - Maximum benefits by Zoran
Makrevski
What is CSS?
CSS is a simple file which controls the visual
appearance of a Web
page without compromising its structure. Using CSS
we can control our
font size, font color, link color and many other
attributes on our web
page. This will make our HTML code much more
readable and the page size
will be reduced.
Why to use it 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.
Fact is that we live in a busy world, and
people are not will to wait more
than 5 seconds web page to
load.
From the other side some web developers implement the CSS on
wrong way.
They write their CSS in HTML code of the 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 that you want
to change font color
and colors of the links on your site. You
will have to edit ALL the
pages on your site, and do to that you
will need time, because you
place your CSS in your web page.
Better way is to save your visual
attributes in separate,
external CSS file, and to link that file with
your 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 saved in ONE external CSS file.
Edit that file,
and you are done.
Benefits
Which are the
benefits of using CSS? List is quite long and I will list here only the
most important.
- Your web page will load faster
- Web page will
become more search engine friendly
- You can change you site appearance
within minutes
- You can write separate CSS file for handheld devices
which
will be called up instead of the regular CSS file
- You can
forget about creating printer friendly version of
your site using
separate CSS file when user chooses to print the web page.
Avoiding
standard HTML commands like:
<font color="#0000ff"><font
size=2>Product</font>
will help us to reduce file size,
but that is not the only benefit. Using
CSS word product in this
example will be moved more close on the top of
the document. Search
engine will pick up more content and less code.
Imagine that you
have 3 columns table on your page. When you see the code,
you will
notice that first come code for your table, and after that it come
your content. Positioning your 3 columns using CSS instead of standard
inline elements:
<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, your code might look
like this:
<div id="leftcontent">
My
Product
</div>
Again your code is much more clear, and
your 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 you will benefit with removing the unnecessary
code in your HTML and create search engine friendly web
page.
Validate it
Browser war is far behind us. Reality is that
most of the people
today use Internet Explorer, but you should try to
be on safe side
and ensure that your CSS code is valid. Not all
browsers interpret
the CSS on same way. You can validate your CSS
here:
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
About the Author
Zoran Makrevski
Search
Engine Positioning Firm
SEO.Goto.gr
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