Why Your Site Should be Developed with CSS and Semantic Markup

Why your site should be developed with CSS and semantic markup

One thing that I have learned in over a decade developing web sites is that the Net is continually changing, and to keep up you need to change with it. One of the more recent developments in web design is the use of CSS and semantic markup. CSS and semantic web design has several benefits: clarity in code, browser and other web-enabled devices compatibility, seperation of content and presentation, smaller burden on bandwith, and better visibility to search engines.

Back in the day, we designed sites with tables and hacked those tables into doing things that they were never meant to do. The table tag was designed to display tabular data, not as a way to render the layout of a website. Unfortunately, a better alternative did not exist, so we used tables. This made for inefficient, slow loading sites with code that was very hard to read and maintain. Wikipedia defines sematic markup like this:

Sematic pages: supply information for Web search engines using web crawlers. This could be machine-readable information about the human-readable content of the document (such as the creator, title, description, etc., of the document) or it could be purely metadata representing a set of facts (such as resources and services elsewhere in the site). (Note that anything that can be identified with a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) can be described, so the semantic web can reason about people, places, ideas, cats etc.)

These days, hip designers and developers use CSS extensively to create beautiful, fully standards compliant sites. CSS-based layout allows us to develop sites that will degrade effectively--that is that they will be viewable on all types of devices such as PDAs, cell phones, T.V.s--and will work correctly on devices that dont even exist yet as long as they are standards compliant.

Most importantly, developing sites with CSS allows us to effectively separate content and presentation. Have you ever looked at the source code of HTML pages that were created with a table-based layout and wondered what the heck is going on here? You see lots of opening and closing of tables and table rows all mixed together with textual content and graphics. With a clean, CSS-based layout you can create pages that are easily understood by looking at the source, making them easier to understand, maintain, and update. Look at the source of my company site http://www.vp3media.com and then look at the source code of this site that uses a tables based layout: http://webservices.org/. Big difference, huh?

If you have a site with high traffic, you can significantly reduce the amount of bandwdth used by transitioning from a table-based site to a CSS-based layout. If a visitor to your site doesnt have to load all of the code needed to render those tables and spacer gifs, you are transmiting less data.

CSS also offers search engine optimization benefits over tables. If you have a tables based business site that relys on Internet traffic to turn a profit or aquire new clients you will see real advantages by switching to CSS. When a search engine spiders your tables-based site, they retrieve a large amount of content that has nothing to do with you business. When search engines spiders a clean CSS-based site, the majority of content retrieved will be textual content that describes your business. The ratio of content-to-code is higher with CSS-based layouts.

Weve all seen search engine descriptions that dont make any sense; thats because search engine spiders use a top down method for retrieving information. Whatever is topmost in your document, the search engines are going to think is the most important part of the document, and therefore should be used as the description. Since we seperate content and presentation with CSS, we can put the most important information at the top of a document no matter where it is actually displayed on the page. Try that with tables!

I hope this article gives you an overview of why it is important to transition from your current tables-based layout to a fully valid CSS implementation. If you dont have a web site, but are planning on launching one in the near future, make sure you tell your developers you want a CSS-based implementation. If you need help moving from your current tables-based site to a CSS-based one, please feel free to contact me at vp3media@gmail.com or call me toll free at 1-877-320-4349 and Ill be happy to discuss your site with you.

James Kendall has been developing websites for over a decade and has founded and co-founded several companies concerned with web development since 1994. Currently he runs VP3Media and focuses on one on one interaction with select clients.

---

Web Page Building for Beginners 4

Page ranking by search engines such as Google are not... Read More

The Most Important Question To Ask About Your Web Site!

When you design a website how do you start ?Do... Read More

Ten Steps to a Winning Home Page

There's no doubt about it - the first page your... Read More

How To Use Unsafe Web Colors With Minimum And Safety And Maximum And Profit

Do you want to use unsafe web colors without offending... Read More

Event Planning Must Include An Event Website

As part of your event planning you should seriously consider... Read More

Make Artistic Graphic Designs

Are you a student of graphic design? If you have... Read More

How Does Your Website Measure Up?

Does your website make a good first impression? Is the... Read More

How To Design A Web Site

I'm not a professional web site designer and openly admit... Read More

The Secrets of The Shriekers

I am constantly bombarded with all sorts of advertisements, single-page... Read More

What You Should Ask a Web Designer Before You Hire Him

You've thought about it and you're ready to go. You're... Read More

How to Convince Your Visitors to Return Often

One visit does not make a sale. Be sure to... Read More

Website Conversion Secrets Revealed

In my last article entitled, Maximizing The True Value Of... Read More

Website Savvy: 10 Key Steps to Turn Your Customers ON!

"How to turn "slightly interested" customers into "I've got to... Read More

Web Site Design Mistakes

Some wise human once said "Learn from the mistakes of... Read More

Why Long Web Pages are Better than Short Ones

Many Internet sites that try to sell you something have... Read More

Keep Your Navigation Simple!

Navigation must be simple. Since it's the backbone of your... Read More

Lead Capture Pages Explode Your Direct Sales Business Online!

Are you building a direct sales or mlm business online?... Read More

Color Psychology in Marketing

On the internet we don't deal with face to face... Read More

How Important is Content to a Successful Website

Content is the most important part of any website.The Internet... Read More

Do You Hate Your Website? Web Site Sales To Hit $316 Billion Over The Next 6 Years

What dollar amount does your web site contribute to this... Read More

Make it Clear What Your Website is About

Just about every list of the "Top 10 Web Design... Read More

Keep It Simple, Stupid: The Beauty of a Clean Cut Website

Don't knock it; "Keep It Simple, Stupid" is a great... Read More

How To Create A Homepage That Works

Want to know what the worst thing to say on... Read More

Web Site Accessibility

Making your site accessible means making it available to be... Read More

Winning Websites

Customers will form an opinion of your business as soon... Read More

Web Site Design Mistakes ? Database Parameters In URLs

Creating a web site takes thought, planning and execution. Unfortunately,... Read More

6 Website Design Disasters and How to Avoid Them?.

Let's face it; the line from A Field of Dreams... Read More

To Hire or Not to Hire a Website Designer

In the early years of the internet the actual design... Read More

Low Cost Web Design In Birmingham

There are many companies who build websites, all of which... Read More

How to save money on a website

Know what you wantMake sure you know why you... Read More

Online Advertising: 10 Tricky Secrets To Keep Visitors Glued To Your Website And Increase Sales

It is common sense.The more time people spend at your... Read More

Design Matters in our Visual Culture

FIRST IMPRESSIONS. First impressions often leave lasting impressions. Impressions... Read More

Be Friendly to Search Engines

The object of search engines is to give their visitors... Read More