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CSS
- Maximum Benefits
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></font></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/
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