Newsletter
| July, 2005 Your site can look good to visitors and search engines, is that possible? Yes, using Cascading Style Sheets(CSS as they are referred to in the industry) as a formatting tool that assists HTML. CSS will help your site look better, and reflect your identity and brand. It's a more refined way of formating content. Unlike HTML tags CSS allows designers to use familiar terms like points or pixels to control font sizes or area. CSS can also control the color and weight of fonts, as well as the spacing of letters and the space between lines. Benefits of CSS: Increase Searchability Because CSS works with HTML or hypertext, everything formatted with CSS is seen by search engines. With that said, all text, headers and subheads can incorporate your keywords. Your content can take on the duel role of incorporating key words more effectively. Creates Consistency CSS code is compatible with a wider variety of browsers and operating systems. As a result a web site viewed on a PC running Windows XP and Internet Explorer will look very close if not the same to a PC running Windows 2000 using Netscape, even when the site was designed on a Mac. Easier Navigation In the past designers turned to making their navigation look nice by using images for the navigation words. This made things difficult if the navigation bar required changes afterward. CSS solves the problems of consistency and control that made designers move to images in the first place. As a result, you can get more traction with your navigation if you use hypertext instead of images. And like your content, you can incorporate keywords into your navigation words. Example: "About Us" becomes "About Company Name" or something even more descriptive. Easy on the eye, easier on the updates Cascading Style Sheets work hierarchically. Your whole site can be formatted by a remote master style sheet, locally on one page or in a single instance on a particular part of a page. That's the "Cascading" part. Let's say all of the copy in your site is going to be set in Arial at 10 point in grey. Those "rules" are placed in the master style sheet document. The power of CSS is realized when changes need to be made and you want your copy to display in 12 point. The change is made one time in one place, this makes it easier to update while maintaining the look you want. Final thoughts Cascading Style Sheets give more control and flexibility over the formatting of text but aid in site development and maintenance which saves money. Although we're still stuck using only a few fonts that can be seen on different computer platforms CSS formats them to be more consistent from one to the other. By using hypertext instead of images for navigation or headers your site is more visible to search engines and you have more opportunity to make your keywords do double duty. Back to the Newsletter page Sign up to get your copy of the Pylon Page |
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