With CSS web design you are able remove the content and separate it from your presentation since you could use an external style sheet which holds the different styles for your website that makes it possible for you to make changes by just editing whichever particular page you want to change. This is certainly a major improvement over the old method of having to edit each and every page in your website, which took forever to complete.

What’s more, once you make the switch over to CSS web design you will find that search engine Google will give enough weightage to its use and thus end up ranking such pages higher on its results pages and even the various search engines will spider content that is at the top of your source code. What it means is that with CSS web design you can make your content structured in such a way as to make the content appear at the top of your source code and thus get your website ranked higher and thereby get a head start on the competition.

Another advantage of using CSS web design is that it allows your website pages to load faster and thus you don’t risk having visitors leave your website because it took too long to load. If you are still using tables in your website then you would understand the amount of time that it takes to load all the tables. Another benefit of using CSS web design is that you can have HTML documents that are smaller in size which will also considerably reduce the time it takes to load the pages.

Also, when using CSS web design you are able to do away with extraneous HTML code which will end up making your website less cluttered and more neat as well as clean and that means that you can easily edit and alter code without going through too many labor pangs doing so.

In today’s world of virus attacks, people prefer to surf without having JavaScript enabled and thus whatever attractive JavaScript navigation that you had made in your web design will be lost on them. However, when using CSS navigation you can get the same results and thus you can get rollovers as well other nifty effects which are also more user friendly as well.

The bottom line is that CSS web design is a lot quicker to do as compared with tables and it is also possible to use certain styles across your site and thus you get the best out of your web design.

The majority of all users out there are on some type either a desktop or a laptop computer and this has usually been the case. So designing “to fit” was never really a large issue for web developers until recently more and more users are purchasing and services there internet capable handhelds, cell phones, tablets of all shapes and sizes. The most flexible type of layout that can fit across the majority of these platforms is what is called a liquid layout. It’s a mix of html, PHP/ASP or any flavor code but most importantly CSS. CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, a new feature being added to HTML that gives both Web design developers and users more control over how pages are displayed. With CSS, designers and users can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear.

These Style Sheets can then be applied to any Web page. This is a dynamic way to centralize the looks or style of any web site. This can also be applied when using different screen size. With your flavor of code added with CSS you can have the server displays the page to auto-detect which type of browser and or machine the viewer is looking at your site on, therefore it can auto-fit to the best perspective and layout, thus actually delivering your site to all users out there no matter what screen size or ratio they are viewing your site on. This a huge factor when developing one’s site and almost always goes overlooked when choosing a developer or firm to create your companies web site.

Now, if you do not plan ahead in the development stages you can lose a large percentage of viewers coming to your site. It’s one thing getting your traffic there, and to have a snazzy or flashy web design but allowing 100% of the viewers to actually see your site is a point this is far too often overlooked.

Kyle Newton is a professional internet marketing specialist and can launch and manage your complete web presence from Web Design to SEO with professional results that make your projects, services, or products a success on the web.

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One major problem with CSS is that not all Web browsers produce the same results and it has not been helped in the past by the various browsers employing their own way of interpreting certain CSS conventions. You can think your CSS design looks OK in the current version of your preferred browser and can then be crestfallen when you view your Web pages in another version that has destroyed the formatting. Therefore, when moving over to CSS, it is important that you use the capabilities that are consistently supported across the entire range of popular browsers. It is interesting that the new version 7 of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has fixed a number of earlier anomalies, but many people are now waking up to the reality that IE7 has in fact caused problems arising from their earlier workarounds!

So why not bother with CSS, if Tables work for you? The principal advantages are as follows:

1. Web page code is generally much easier to follow;

2. The amount of code used to achieve the same result is much less. The general view is that by switching to a CSS layout, the typical page size reduction is between 50 – 60 per cent;

3. Download speeds for CSS pages are generally faster than their Table-driven counterparts. This is because browsers have to read through the table code twice before they are able to display the contents. They do this firstly to figure out the structure and then again to understand the content. It should also be recognised that a Table’s contents can only be presented to the screen in one go, whereas CSS content will drop in separately, thereby giving a better user experience. It is also possible to govern the order in which specific screen elements appear, so the user is not distracted by the more bulky and slower to load image files. Furthermore, because all the code involved with CSS page layout is held in one external CSS document and is cached, it is faster than Table layouts that need to be interpreted every time a new page is displayed;

4. It is much easier to edit existing pages and to add new pages, particularly in the area of subtle formatting amendments. For example, you can change the font or colour scheme across an entire website in literally minutes;

5. CSS delivers enhanced accessibility. In recent years the number of people using web browsers on hand-held devices has risen significantly and CSS plays an important function in delivering content to PDA’s etc through additional CSS documents. This just isn’t possible with Table-driven layouts;

6. CSS is considered to be more Search Engine friendly because they can spider CSS pages quicker. However, it remains to be seen if this has any tangible benefits such as an improvement on the your page ranking.

On the flipside, there are a few disadvantages to CSS web page design you should consider:

1. As compared with Tables, CSS involves a much bigger learning curve;

2. Because of cross browser support issues, the time spent implementing workarounds should not be underestimated;

3. New browser versions can catch website developers napping if you are not careful. You can find that earlier workarounds have been overcome and the look of your website has changed overnight.

Ultimately, your decision on whether or not to move over to see CSS will probably depend on your level of technical capability and the time you’re able to devote to understanding CSS layout alternatives.

David Sielicki is Features Editor with Fetcher the UK’s products and services directory. He is also a freelancer with Web Affinity

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