It seems that every year there is a newer, friendlier way to design a website with search engine optimization in mind. First it was frames, then layers, then tables. Over the last little while, CSS has taken over as the hot language in which to design a website, both for its looks and it search friendliness.
CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is a method of site design in which elements of a website are kept on a “master sheet”, and called upon in individual web pages. For example, if you have the same logo at the top of your website on every page in the site, you can tell a browser what to show, how to show and where to show that logo on your CSS page just once instead of repeating that process every time for every web page throughout your site.
So, on your CSS style sheet you can list the following:
-what image you are using for your logo;
-where you want the image to appear (eg. 10 pixels away from the top-left corner);
-whether you want the image to float around other website elements (eg. text);
-whether you want to link the image to another page;
-and the list goes on.
Meanwhile, in the actual HTML of each web page concerned where you want that logo to appear, all you have to do is call that item (usually presented as a <div> element) and it will slide right in there.
Here are a few advantages of using CSS for site elements repeated throughout the site:
1. It reduces bulky code on each page of the site, leaving the search engines to see only the unique, important (and hopefully optimized!) content on each page.
2. It doesn’t restrict search engine spiders from viewing the content nested within the CSS elements, much like they would be restricted if a site were created in frames, for example.
3. You can place content exactly where you want it, and command it to function exactly where you want it – you have complete flexibility over content usage and placement.
4. For the most part, CSS is rendered pretty much the same across browsers, limiting the need to design different page elements for use on different browsers. This is not the case with page structures using layers or tables.
5. It is currently accepted as one of the best ways to design a website.
Though we don’t provide you with a tutorial on how to implement CSS on to your website, there is some great information found here.
Hope that helps!
CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is a method of site design in which elements of a website are kept on a “master sheet”, and called upon in individual web pages. For example, if you have the same logo at the top of your website on every page in the site, you can tell a browser what to show, how to show and where to show that logo on your CSS page just once instead of repeating that process every time for every web page throughout your site.
So, on your CSS style sheet you can list the following:
-what image you are using for your logo;
-where you want the image to appear (eg. 10 pixels away from the top-left corner);
-whether you want the image to float around other website elements (eg. text);
-whether you want to link the image to another page;
-and the list goes on.
Meanwhile, in the actual HTML of each web page concerned where you want that logo to appear, all you have to do is call that item (usually presented as a <div> element) and it will slide right in there.
Here are a few advantages of using CSS for site elements repeated throughout the site:
1. It reduces bulky code on each page of the site, leaving the search engines to see only the unique, important (and hopefully optimized!) content on each page.
2. It doesn’t restrict search engine spiders from viewing the content nested within the CSS elements, much like they would be restricted if a site were created in frames, for example.
3. You can place content exactly where you want it, and command it to function exactly where you want it – you have complete flexibility over content usage and placement.
4. For the most part, CSS is rendered pretty much the same across browsers, limiting the need to design different page elements for use on different browsers. This is not the case with page structures using layers or tables.
5. It is currently accepted as one of the best ways to design a website.
Though we don’t provide you with a tutorial on how to implement CSS on to your website, there is some great information found here.
Hope that helps!