Cascading Stylesheets Advantages: 5 Reasons To Use CSS by Hilco van
der Meer
1. The content is separated from the design
Because you are able to create a separate Stylesheet and link it to all your
webdocuments, you have great control over how your website looks. So if you
want to change a certain aspect of your page, you only need to alter one file:
your Stylesheet!
This Of course, generates some great flexibility. This flexibility is not
available when your website is using tables for layout, inline font tags or
inline defined colors.
A single CSS file can contain positioning, layout, font, colors and style
information for an entire web site.
2. You site uses less bandwidth and loads faster
Because stylesheets are so lightweight, your website will load much faster. The
main reason is because you do not need table layouts anymore for the
positioning of elements. Since text loads really really fast your website will
be visible in a flash.
This means that visitors will be happier when surfing your website. They only
have to download the Stylesheet once, and it's automatically reused for every
page. So the only thing that needs to be loaded is the actual content.
On average a website will load five to ten times faster if it makes use of
cascading style sheets.
3. Your website will automatically gain better search engine results
With CSS, you can position any element, anywhere you want. So if your menu is
at the bottom of your HTML document, you can bring it up using absolute
positioning. The reason this is useful is to make sure the search engine
spiders pick up the main content first.
Another advantage you automatically gain is that your HTML code is much
cleaner. So the search engine spider will not have to separate the junk code
from the real content.
So make sure you put your logo text and your menu at the bottom of your HTML
document at put it at the top using CSS!
4. CSS is compatible with newer browsers
Because more and more browsers are used other than Internet Explorer on a
Windows machine, you need to be sure that your website is accessible by all
major and newer browsers.
By using webstandards, defined by the w3c, you are making sure your content is
viewable in the future.
Because there are so many browsers these days, it is impossible to test your
website in all these browsers on different configurations. Coding to standards
is then the only practical solution.
5. CSS can be used to display the same content on different media.
Because you are able to define different stylesheets for different media you
have great flexibility in presenting your content.
The printer for example, is a medium on itself. If someone prints out your
website, you will be able to modify the look of it. Add an extra black and
white logo, remove the advertisements and change the colors to black and white
values. It's all done easily by using cascading stylesheets. And the best thing
is, visitors do not even have to know you created a new Stylesheet especially
for the printer.
Stylesheets can also be created specifically for PDA's and such. As you will
understand, this adds some great flexibility to the presentation of your web
document.
Conclusion
Cascading Style Sheets are created to make things easier. It gives you great
control of your website and makes your visitors happy when they are surfing
your website.
You are prepared for the future and will gain better search engine results
automatically. Start using CSS to its full potential today! It will suit you
well.
About the Author
Hilco van der Meer is known as the author of the Cascading Style Sheets Course
How To Master CSS. He's a professional Web Designer for over 5 years now. His
course aims at easy to follow and step-by-step examples. More info can be found
at http://www.HowToMasterCss.com
|
