Your New Website is Inside by Drew Stauffer
Today's Internet is a lot different than it used to be. With new developments
such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and web standards, building websites
the same old way just won't cut it anymore. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
creates guidelines and regulations that designers strive to follow to make
their sites as accessible and functional as possible. Compliance with W3C
standards ensures that your site achieves its full potential across a range of
systems. However, the W3C regulations continue to change everyday. Do these new
rules and regulations on the Internet mean that your website has to suffer
aesthetically? The answer is NO. With CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), web
designers have the ability to do anything on the web, from browser
compatibility to full control of all the aesthetics of any web page. CSS also
gives a more solid foundation for SEO, usability, and compliance with web
standards.
From a development aspect of web design, the first great advantage of CSS is
cross browser compatibility. Every web designer has sat down at a foreign
computer and opened one of their websites only to find that the layout is
mangled. Everything is either in a different spot or not present at all. This
happens because different Internet browsers, and even different versions of the
same Internet browser, display websites slightly differently. Web designers are
forced to test their builds on as many browsers as possible to minimize this
problem. However, users constantly upgrade their computers and download new
features to enhance their experience on the Internet. As a developer, you can
never control all the variables, but you can eliminate the majority of the
problems by using CSS - an extreme advantage when one considers that everything
on the Internet is about usability. If the user is at ease and comfortable then
they are more likely to return to your site, purchase your product, recommend
your service to others, etc. If they get confused because the navigation moves
or doesn't function properly, they are more likely to move on to another site.
Web designers know that the power of CSS gives them many options, but a great
deal of designers do not use CSS to its full capabilities. By learning about
this language, you can develop it to do more. The cascading part of CSS is the
most important feature and yet it is still the most over-looked. CSS makes it
possible for the designer to alter one file and, in doing so; make
modifications to the entire site. For example, rather than adjusting every font
tag individually, this programming technique allows the designer to alter every
font in the entire site by changing a single tag in the CSS file. CSS also
creates code that is cleaner and less bulky than other scripting languages.
Less code means that the search engine "bots" will have enhanced access to the
content on your website. In turn, your website will be indexed more
effectively, matching your site with appropriate inquiries from users looking
for your services. Older development techniques like frames and tables limit
the search engines' ability to crawl your website, so the bot will leave
without registering the content. This significantly limits the search engines'
ability to view and catalogue all of your information, and ultimately limits
your presence online.
Increased ease and efficiency is another great benefit of CSS. Once you have
obtained a decent knowledge of the programming technique, however, it is very
easy to let the styles of the CSS control the way you design. CSS functions
much like building blocks. At the bottom levels, building is very easy to
accomplish, but the larger you go the more advanced and detailed the work
becomes. I see many websites that boast about the designer's ability to utilize
CSS, but the site is rather plain and boring. I am a big fan of minimalism but
not when it results from a lack of creativity. Which brings me to the question,
has the ease of CSS made designers lazy? For some, the answer is yes, but
others use the many advantages of CSS to connect creative design with utility
and performance. As a full-time designer, I devote all of my energy to creating
graphic-focused, visually stimulating websites with CSS as the structure
everything is built on.
A website doesn't have to be simple or boring to work properly. CSS does not
limit the design graphically but instead gives the designer the power to create
an aesthetically pleasing and fully functional website. If you took two
identical designs and built one with tables and one table-less (CSS), the CSS
site would have a higher usability across more platforms, it would rank better
with the search engines, and the overall performance of the website would be
better. Graphically intense CSS layouts do take more time to think through and
build out, but that is why I make custom websites. In the ever-changing online
world, CSS-based sites are the most up-to-date and effective way to build W3C
compliant websites that push the limits of design and function.
About the Author
Drew Stauffer is co-founder of
Wildfire Productions, a San Diego based search engine marketing and
website development company.
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