Improve Website Design and Search Engine Ranking Using CSS

Cascading Style Sheets CSS

Basically, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a simple style sheet language which is used to add the presentation (i.e. the look and formatting) of a particular document or web pages. It’s most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML pages. The CSS language lets you to build fast loading pages, increases your search engine ranking, and modifies your complete website using one style sheet.

Most of the people don’t use CSS as because they have got so much familiar with html design and are afraid or too lazy to upgrade their skills. Even by merging CSS with the functionality of a Content Management System (CMS) a considerable amount of flexibility can be planned into content submission forms. It allows the user who may not be familiar or able to understand or edit CSS or HTML code to select the layout of a web page they are submitting on-the-fly, in the same form.

Advantages of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

  • Separating content from presentation – using CSS you can easily separate your HTML markup, text, graphics and multimedia from the presentation.
  • Consistent site wide look and feel consistency – CSS file saves your plenty of time, especially if you had to edit every page separately. It is very simple and easy to apply one style for 100’s of web pages all at once. So if you need to change the color of all pages on your site, you just have to edit one style sheet.
  • 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.
  • Improves search engine ranking – 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.
  • Fast loading – CSS reduces the amount of tags used therefore producing clean code. Table less design can reduce your load time by 25% to 50%.
  • Reduces 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.
  • 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. Table less layouts display well on hand-held.
  • Improves the printing of web page – 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 not only effect all styles on your web page but also your whole site.

Posted under Search Engine Optimization

SEO Tips to Increase Website Traffic and Ranking

Search Engine RankingSome of these tips might be ideas or strategies you have heard before but never really acted on it. But, working on these SEO tips can help you to get more relevant traffic to your website and increase website ranking.

Here are few SEO Tips to increase your website traffic and search engine ranking:

  • Build a site with valuable content, products and services. I know this seems obvious but I can’t stress the importance of good content. If you don’t have good content now then keep adding to your site.
  • Make the website design simple and attractive so that it will be easy for your customers to navigate and find what they are looking for. My point is that your pages should not lead to a dead-end. Pages should have links to other pages.
  • Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document. Try and have it read like it would if you were talking with a friend.
  • Research and choose the right keywords or key phrases to attract your target audiences. If you know what’s important to your customers then you would focus on those keywords.
  • Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page like Title, META Tags, Headers, etc.
  • Submit your every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and web directories. If required, hire someone to do the submissions. Ensure that all submissions are done manually. Do not use any automated software or submission service.
  • Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. See the tools page for tools to automate this process.
  • Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc. It is easier to copy then to try and figure it out on your own.
  • Use statistic reports from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
  • Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.  Plus, these will lead to backlinks to your site!
  • Don’t look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.

Posted under Search Engine Optimization, SEO Tips