| Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allows you to create | | | | site redesigns will take much less time.4. Improve |
| fast | | | | search engine rankings - search engines |
| loading pages, increase your search engine rankings, | | | | generally spider the code at the top of your web |
| and | | | | page first. |
| modify your whole site with one style sheet. So | | | | For most sites that means the navigation bar will be |
| why don't | | | | spidered |
| more people use them? This is because they got so | | | | first (resides at top of page code). CSS enables you |
| used to | | | | to |
| html design and are afraid or too lazy to upgrade | | | | position the code for your content at the top |
| their | | | | making your |
| skills. Some will also use ready made templates that | | | | page search engine friendly. Properly marked up |
| contain flashy graphics, bloated code and sometimes | | | | HTML pages |
| | | | can easily found and properly categorized by search |
| even contains hidden code embedded in the page.In | | | | engines5. Fast loading - CSS reduces the amount of |
| this series of articles I will show you how to create a | | | | tags used |
| simple web site using CSS, so you will have no | | | | therefore producing clean code. Tableless design can |
| excuse to | | | | reduce |
| begin incorporating them into your future | | | | your load time by 25% to 50%.6. Reduce bandwidth |
| designs.What are Cascading Style Sheets?Cascading | | | | - compacting the amount of code used |
| Style Sheets is the name of a simple language | | | | will reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to host |
| that allows you to add any style (font, colors, | | | | your web |
| graphics, | | | | pages. Therefore you won't have to pay higher fees |
| links, layouts) to your web pages.Benefits of | | | | when |
| Cascading Style Sheets1. Separate content from | | | | adding more web documents to your site.7. |
| presentation - you can separate | | | | Accessibility - increasing accessibility with CSS means |
| your HTML markup, text, graphics and multimedia | | | | being able to serve web content to a larger |
| from | | | | audience, |
| presentation.2. Consistent site wide look and feel | | | | increasing web site usability, even for non-disabled |
| consistency - you can | | | | people. Content can easily be formatted for |
| apply one style for 100s of web pages all at once. | | | | projection as |
| So if | | | | well as screen display. Tableless layouts display well |
| you had to change the color of all pages on your | | | | on |
| site, you | | | | hand-helds.8. Improve the printing of web pages - |
| only have to edit one style sheet. This saves you a | | | | most printers will |
| huge | | | | only allow you to print a portion of the web page. |
| amount of time, especially if you had to edit each | | | | With CSS |
| page | | | | your whole document can be printed.When you use |
| separately.3. Web site maintenance - apart from | | | | CSS it becomes quick and easy to apply new |
| being able to make | | | | styles that can not only effect all styles on your |
| site wide changes easily through one CSS file, the | | | | web page |
| clean | | | | but even your whole site.In the next article I will |
| code it generates makes it easier to update. | | | | explain how to layout a web page |
| Properly | | | | using CSS.Herman Drost is the Certified Internet |
| marked up web pages permit them to be maintained | | | | Webmaster (CIW) |
| by more | | | | owner and author of Affordable |
| than one person. It will also work in more browsers. | | | | Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his |
| Web | | | | "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles. |