| Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet | | | | the actual code over text ratio weight of your site. |
| language that permits web designers to attach style | | | | Do you know why? Because modern search engines |
| like spacing, color, font, etc. to HTML documents. | | | | such as: Google, Yahoo and MSN love light-weighted |
| Cascading style sheets work similarly to a template; | | | | websites. They want to see your content; the text, |
| permitting web developers to label style for an HTML | | | | not the code. With CSS everything is possible. You |
| element and after that apply it to the number of | | | | practically externalize excessive code into external |
| web pages required. Thus, Cascading Style Sheets | | | | file, thus leaving the actual page clean and simple. |
| (CSS) are collections of formatting rules, which | | | | Website Accessibility |
| control the appearance of content in a web page. | | | | CSS makes your website more accessible. The |
| With CSS styles you have great flexibility and control | | | | number of users browsing the web through hand |
| of the exact page appearance; from precise | | | | held devices are continuously growing tremendously. |
| positioning of layout to specific fonts and styles. | | | | It is estimated that by 2008, one third of the world's |
| There are many benefits of using CSS. One of the | | | | population will be using hand held devices for |
| major benefits of using CSS is the easy maintenance | | | | accessing Internet. It is always important that your |
| of the website. Maintenance of a website made with | | | | site is accessible to them also. You can make an |
| CSS is much easier compared to the ones which are | | | | additional CSS document particularly for handheld |
| table based. CSS splits the presentation style of | | | | devices like cell phones, which will be called up in place |
| documents from the content of documents and | | | | of the regular CSS document; which is not achievable |
| makes the maintenance of the site easier. Aside | | | | with a tabular layout. CSS benefits accessibility chiefly |
| from being able to make site extensive changes with | | | | by separating document structure from presentation. |
| no trouble through one CSS file, the clean code it | | | | By separating style from markup, webmasters can |
| generates makes it easier to update. Webmasters | | | | simplify and clean up the HTML in their documents, |
| can characterize the appearance of a site in one | | | | making the documents more accessible. |
| place, and change the whole site by changing just | | | | Increases Download Speed of Your Website |
| one file. With CSS, when you decide to craft a | | | | CSS code downloads faster than tables. Browsers |
| change, you simply alter the style, and that element | | | | read through tables twice previous to exhibiting their |
| is updated automatically anywhere it appears in the | | | | contents; first to work out their structure and then |
| site. So, if you have to alter the color of all pages in | | | | to determine their content. Moreover, tables are |
| your site, you only have to edit one style sheet. This | | | | shown on the screen as a whole, no part of the |
| saves you enormous amount of time, particularly if | | | | table will be displayed until the entire table is |
| you have to edit each page independently. CSS | | | | downloaded and rendered. Tables support the use of |
| generally requires less code compared to table based. | | | | spaced images to assist with positioning. CSS |
| This makes your code lighter and cleaner. Clean code | | | | generally requires less code than cumbersome tables. |
| makes a huge difference in maintaining your site. | | | | All code to do with the layout can be placed in an |
| Cascading Style Sheets Benefits and Search Engine | | | | external CSS document, which will be called up just |
| Optimization (SEO) | | | | once and then stored on the user's computer; while |
| Another major benefit of CSS is that it makes your | | | | the table layout stored in each HTML document, |
| website SEO friendly. The reason behind this is simple. | | | | must be loaded up each time a new page downloads. |
| The search engines spiders are actually very lethargic. | | | | Also with CSS, you can manage the order of the |
| They do not go through the bundles of HTML codes | | | | items downloaded into the screen. You have the |
| to get to the indexed codes. Font tags and tables | | | | control to make the content appear previous to the |
| make the HTML code very cumbersome; thus, | | | | slow loading images, which is liked by most of the |
| reduce the accuracy of the results. If you use | | | | web users. |
| external CSS files to design and determine the design | | | | Cross Browser Compatibility |
| attributes; the HTML code will be clean and it will | | | | For all webmasters out there! CSS makes your |
| result to better search engine rankings. With some | | | | website more professional. Taking the benefits of |
| knowledge of CSS you will be able to change the | | | | CSS like making your websites load faster and easy |
| code layout without destroying the actual visual | | | | to maintain, you save a lot of time and labor. This in |
| layout. For instance, you could easily make the main | | | | turn makes you lots of money. CSS makes links of |
| content of your site to show up above the header | | | | the website look more attractive and dynamic. Using |
| or navigation menu in the code of your website; thus | | | | CSS, you can slot in rollovers easily and effectively, |
| will help to show search engine crawlers the | | | | without having to use a single character of |
| importance of your content. I personally saw a huge | | | | JavaScript. Thus, CSS gives your websites a |
| boost in rankings in fully CSS web sites. When I look | | | | professional look. It is wise to use CSS to jive with |
| at someone's website that was built using old school | | | | the current trends of the industry. All major browsers |
| HTML code with tags such as: TABLES, TD, TR, | | | | like Firefox, Explorer, and Netscape presently |
| FONT and so on, I feel awkward and immediately | | | | recognize CSS and it is definitely safe for web |
| convert that site to a fully table-less CSS layout. | | | | designers to use CSS now. |
| There are many tools on the Internet that shows | | | | |