How To Design Your Web Site With CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allows you to create fast loading pages, increase your search engine rankings, and modify your whole site with one style sheet. So why don't more people use them? This is because they got so used to html design and are afraid or too lazy to upgrade their skills. Some will also use ready made templates that contain flashy graphics, bloated code and sometimes even contains hidden code embedded in the page.

In this series of articles I will show you how to create a simple web site using CSS, so you will have no excuse to begin incorporating them into your future designs.

What are Cascading Style Sheets?

Cascading Style Sheets is the name of a simple language that allows you to add any style (font, colors, graphics, links, layouts) to your web pages.

Benefits of Cascading Style Sheets

1. Separate content from presentation - you can separate your HTML markup, text, graphics and multimedia from presentation.

2. Consistent site wide look and feel conistency - you can apply one style for 100s of web pages all at once. So if you had to change the color of all pages on your site, you only have to edit one style sheet. This saves you a huge amount of time, especially if you had to edit each page separately.

3. Web site maintenance - apart from being able to make site wide changes easily through one CSS file, the clean code it generates makes it easier to update. Properly marked up web pages permit them to be maintained by more than one person. It will also work in more browsers. Web site redesigns will take much less time.

4. Improve search engine rankings - search engines generally spider the code at the top of your web page first. For most sites that means the navigation bar will be spidered first (resides at top of page code). CSS enables you to position the code for your content at the top making your page search engine friendly. Properly marked up HTML pages can easily found and properly categorized by search engines

5. Fast loading - CSS reduces the amount of tags used therefore producing clean code. Tableless design can reduce your load time by 25% to 50%.

6. Reduce bandwidth - compacting the amount of code used will reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to host your web pages. Therefore you won't have to pay higher fees when adding more web documents to your site.

7. Accessibility - increasing accessibility with CSS means being able to serve web content to a larger audience, increasing web site usability, even for non-disabled people. Content can easily be formatted for projection as well as screen display. Tableless layouts display well on hand-helds.

8. Improve the printing of web pages - most printers will only allow you to print a portion of the web page. With CSS your whole document can be printed.

When you use CSS it becomes quick and easy to apply new styles that can not only effect all styles on your web page but even your whole site.

In the next article I will explain how to layout a web page using CSS.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles. mailto:[email protected]. You can read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

MORE RESOURCES

People Locator find anyone in the USA

RELATED WEB SITE DESIGN ARTICLES: How to Create an Enjoyable Web Page Design Novice and professional designers alike - you may probably be skilled enough of any one or all of the techniques in creating a Web page and designing them. However, not all designs, even those made by authorities in the field, prove to be enjoyable and entertaining enough for the users. The Monter Garage of eLearning Have you seen Jesse James on the Discovery Channel's Monter Garage? Each week Jesse and his handpicked team create a customized vehicle to dazzle and amaze you. So what does this have to do with eLearning? Read on. Got Web Traffic but Still Low Sales? Ten Ways to Selling Success - Part 2 Part one of this article is available at www.bookcoaching. Size Does Matter! In this article we will be looking at why you should keep your web page size small.As any good webmaster knows you should keep the web page size small, but why? It's really simple, both spiders and visitors hate web pages that take forever to load because it's harder to spider the web page or for the visitor they just don't have time to wait for your web page to come up, after all most web sites are not that great, so why wait if your the visitor?You should keep images down in size, the best way to do this is with image compressors. 6 Reason Why A Website Is Crucial To Your Business Since I'm a web designer, I have a tendency to think everyone understands that having a website is important. Every once in a while, I have to remind myself that some people just haven't heard yet!Why is having a website such a big deal? Here are 6 reason:A website increases your credibility. Drupal Modules There are plenty of Drupal Modules that you can install for your site as add-on. What we liked best about Drupal modules is that it already comes pre-shipped with several modules. The Brutal Truth Not too long ago while looking for businesses that do web design I stumbled upon website. It looked great. Keep Your Navigation Consistent! One of the single most important aspects of effective navigation is conistency. Why? There's a simple reason. Hexadecimal Color Notation on the Web When designing elements for your webpage, you will often be called upon to specify a color. For example, the code for a span shown below specifies that the color of the text within the span will be yellow. 3 Tips For Writing Content That Will Make You Sales Content is king. Without content your website is an empty shell, a skeleton with no flesh, an empty vessel. Make it Clear What Your Website is About Just about every list of the "Top 10 Web Design Mistakes" includes at least one reference to either1. Not clearly specifying the objectives of your website, or2. Converting Print Advertising For Use On The Web - A How-To Contrary to the beliefs of some, advertising for web and print are very different. Converting print ads for use on the web is very tricky. Eight Website Pitfalls, and How to Avoid Them Clutter: Too much noise, too much text, and too little white space mean that customers ignore the content. Customers often scan pages quickly, only reading titles or input prompts until they reach the content they want. Build It And Build It Cheap! Part II If you are familiar with my work, then you have probably taken a look at the first part of this article, and may well be on your way to having your website up and running. Congratulation!!! It's hard work, but having pride in the accomplishment is worth it! Now you have to find the people who want to see it, AKA--site traffic. Usability Lesson from the Hospital Usability isn't only for Web design. It's also applicable in the real world as things aren't always well-designed. The Most Important Question To Ask About Your Web Site! When you design a website how do you start ?Do you start with the banner graphics at the top, or the order page or maybe the sales letter ?All of those are areas that have to be created but they're really not the place to start.The place to start is by answering one simple question about your site. Double Ad-Trackers Its Not as Crazy as It Sounds Here Are 7 Reason Why? A Double Ad Tracker is an Ad-Tracker that points to an AD-Tracker. It may sound a bit like overkill to have an Ad-Tracker Pointing at another Ad-Tracker but it's not crazy. Your Free Guide To Obtain A Cheap Web Design Quote Website design is a very competitive area and there is no longer any reason why people should pay large amounts for web design services.This article describes and explains where to find very very cheap web design services. Hiring The Right Webmaster The Question You Should Be Asking ? The Answers You Should Be ReceivingWhen interviewing webmasters, don't let price be your deciding factor. Among webmasters there is a split between those who are skilled in the fine art of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and those who are not. Your Site Map: Spider Food or Just A Light Snack? Mechanical spiders have to eat. In fact, they usually have bigger appetites than the real-life spiders you squish under your shoe.