The best piece of advice I can offer…today at least!
- 5th Sep 2006
- Leave a Comment
- SEO
Seriously, if I can offer one word of wisdom to any of the people that read my blog is learn CSS please. It’s not that hard and the SEO benefits will soon out way the redesign and switch to CSS.
Ok where to start. Well I started with Suzy’s site and I suggest you do the same so get over to http://www.tanfa.co.uk/ and start to learning something new.
Ok why do you need to know css? Plain and simple answer is you can produce User friendly sites with great design and features, while also displaying your content in the right order to the search engines. I don’t mean cloaking or anything bad here, just plain old white seo. Like moving the navigation system out of the top of the html and having your content at the top of the html, giving the search engines nice meaty content rather than Dupe Menu content.
The word Tables should be used in dining rooms not websites !!
Other great CSS sites are
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/
http://www.realworldstyle.com/
11 Comments | Leave a comment »
If I’d have learnt CSS five years ago, I’d be a happy man now, because I’d be doing new stuff instead of re-css-ing my older sites. Apply a bit of web 2.0 de-cluttering as well suddenly you lubricated and ready for a good spidering.
I just wish IE would learn to play ball with CSS. Bane of my friggin’ life.
I have to admit that your own websites are examples of good CSS work. Do you do it yourself Dave?
Hey Peter ,Yes .. well kinda, it’s my designer what works for me ..
we keep him busy as well, 3 programmers to one designer hehehe
Dave
another great resource is designing with webstandards by jeffery zeldman
http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/
I read it on a flight from NY to Vegas and back, it was like I had been living in the dark before that moment.
Coming from a design/developer background I have been using CSS positioning for quite a while and its good to see the benefits of CSS layout being promoted by the SEO crowd.
Another good reason to develop using web standards. And if your site is easily visible to a spider then its likely to be better for those using assistive technology as well.
Oh my goodness… I’m agreeing with DaveN… again? :P
And yeah, CSS rocks. I taught myself basic CSS 2+ years ago, I think, and used it on my own humble Web sites.
- They’re much easier to edit.
- They’re more search-engine friendly.
- They use FAR less bandwidth (some key pages went from 44K to 15K each).
CSS… good stuff :)
Dave,
Any advice on those sites you mentioned which ones have the best template for ordered content?
I’ve considered using some of the fluid 3-column ones listed on http://www.searchenginefriendlylayouts.com/ but I am a bit leary of the javascript, perhaps I shouldn’t be.
I’ve been on the lookout for a good css layout that serves the main content first, as you’ve noted. I’ve got too many snippets with the navigation menu!
If you are looking for some excellent CSS templates to use try these links.
http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/onetruelayout/
http://alistapart.com/articles/holygrail
About a year ago Alex at Position Is Everything came up with the One true layout which includes any order columns. The A list apart article attempts to improve on this with a bit less markup.
Or just search for “one true layout”
http://www.google.com/search?q=one+true+layout
I don’t mean cloaking or anything bad here, just plain old white seo too.
Thanks PeteTiz
Really nice suggestions. Some really good CSS! Love that!