CSS - Just Another Internet Acronym Or Something to Behold?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. We all know that acronyms are very trendy in the internet world. That is why we have AJAX, psd, and png among others. However CSS stands out among the others because it now represents the gold standard for web page design. Risk ignoring it at your own peril. Gone are the days of designing web pages in table format. CSS is here, and it represents the current and future in web page design. Why??

CSS allows the designer to separate the key elements of a web page, the content and the design, from each other. CSS defines the appearance and location of the tags, classes and divs within your web pages. CSS contains the design elements of the page, and the HTML (or other programming language) contains the content. This allows the web developer amazing freedom to change the design without having to wade through mountains of code. A simple alteration to the CSS file will allow the published web page to be altered quickly and easily. Gone are the bad old days when the design and code use to be interwoven and to change the design meant wading through large amounts of code and changing each individual element of the page.

CSS is usually contained in a separate file which is then linked to the web page. A single CSS file can be linked to multiple web pages allowing you to customise the appearance of your site or sites through the use of a single CSS file. Changing the appearance of your sites can be as simple as linking a new CSS file or editing the existing CSS file. If you have a seasonal business and you want seasonal themes for your sites you can have a different CSS file for each season. Create a Christmas CSS file and when the time is right update the link for your CSS file and have a Christmas theme on your whole site in just a few minutes.

One of the other great advantages of CSS coming from separating the design and code elements of your site is that your site becomes more search engine friendly. We all know that search engine robots read text and text only. So how do you get all those beautiful images and graphics on your site and remain search engine friendly? CSS. Search engines also look at the amount of code on your site relative to the amount of content. If you have lots of code relative to the amount of content, the search engine will not like you. Using an external CSS file gives you plenty of content relative to the amount of code because all of your design code is stored in a separate file. That is why table based web design is no longer. If you are still designing using tables or you are using a designer that uses tables and you want organic (free) search engine traffic, start again!

One of the other great advantages of CSS is that it is relatively easy to learn. Just a little experience and away you go. Popular programs like Dreamweaver by Adobe allow you to write CSS easily, or just a simple text editor will do just fine. You can also download plugins for your browser that allows you to view and even switch off the CSS on files that you are viewing so that you can see how the page is constructed. This is a great way to start to learn CSS.

So, why use CSS. I hope I have more than answered that question. Customise the appearance of your sites quickly and easily. Change the appearance of your sites just as quickly and easily. Become more search engine friendly. And why would you not want to use the gold standard for web design anyway.

CSS. Cascading Style Sheets for Constructing Super Sites.