RezStream Discusses Key Benefits of CSS Driven Websites
RezStream’s design department is eager to share helpful tips about how to get the most out of your website. Our main topic this week is CSS (cascading style sheets) website designs. While the benefits of CSS driven websites are undeniable, those advantages are not always clearly understood. Let’s explore the key benefits of updating your website to a CSS driven one, which loads faster, is visually more appealing, and is more efficient for the search engines.
What is CSS?
CSS or “cascading style sheets” is the preferred web design method for a variety of reasons. CSS is used to specify the layout and presentation of the basic browser language, HTML or XHTML. CSS then allows web developers to separate the content that is written in (X)HTML, from the presentation, written in CSS. CSS is placed outside of the (X)HTML document, which keeps the document shorter and clean, better for search engine optimization (SEO), site performance, accessibility, user experience, and investment.
Benefits in the Search Engines:
Extracting the presentation code from the document means the search engines can more easily find and index your web pages, as their code is cleaner, shorter, and denser in content. Remember that web content is critical to search engine success. Search engines don’t spend a lot of time crawling through all your web pages, so it is essential to know that search engines consider content at the start of your document to be the most important. In that context, placing notable content at the top of the (X)HTML document is extremely beneficial, rather than bogging down your pages with markup that is meaningless to the search engines.
Superior Performance:
Table-based website layouts must load all of the code each time a page is opened. Adding to that, browsers read tables twice (once for structure and once for content) before they can render them. These types of websites also wait to display the entire table, so you see the entire page, rather than piece by piece. On the other hand, CSS driven pages not only have much smaller file sizes because they require less code and images for layout, but developers can also control the order in which items are downloaded to the screen. This superior control also allows developers to make more important elements, such as content, appear first before less important elements, like images, appear. The bottom line is that when pages load faster, your website visitors are pleased with a more positive online experience as they obtain your web content more quickly and efficiently.
Better Accessibility:
Separating the style from the content also makes your website more accessible to visitors who prefer to view only the content of a page, want to print the page, or perhaps use a screen reader to interpret the page.
Higher Consistency & Browser Compatibility:\
Before CSS websites, it was very difficult to keep presentation qualities the same on every page of a website, often only possible using frames, which don’t function well in the search engines. With CSS, web developers can position elements and navigation menus consistently across the entire website. CSS can also target specific browsers to increase your websites ability to be viewed the way you intend, regardless of what browser your visitor is using.
Easier to Make Changes:
CSS makes it straightforward to make changes to presentation elements, as the style sheet can be edited to formulate a change throughout the entire site, a savings of time and money. Conversely, with a table-based layout, the change would need to be made on every single page, which also leaves your site open to probable inconsistencies. In addition, it’s possible to alter the entire look of a website just by making changes to the CSS file.
Increase in Scope of Viewers:
There is a growing need for websites to be well suited for different media. CSS is the solution for this, as CSS is already compatible with PDA’s and mobile devices. Developers can also create style sheets for presentation on certain media that will be called up in place of the regular style sheet, a practice that isn’t possible with a table-based layout. The more people you can reach via a variety of sources, the better it is for your bottom line.
Conclusion:
RezStream’s design team has presented these helpful tips on the benefits of CSS websites. If you haven’t already upgraded your current website to CSS format, now is the perfect time to make the change and RezStream can help!
If you are interested in a new website design or a fresh redesign, explore the expertise of RezStream’s design department. We specialize in custom website designs and content management system websites. Our knowledgeable staff would be happy to answer any questions you might have about a website design that would work best for you. Call RezStream today at 866-360-8210 or email at sales@rezstream.com.
All About ExpressionEngine
Rick Ellis first developed ExpressionEngine as a blogging tool under the name “pMachine” in 2001. An early prototype of pMachine was installed on Nancy Sinatra’s (Frank’s daughter) website. After some real world testing and success, pMachine was released to the public in 2002.
By the end of 2002, pMachine had been featured in a few books and magazines and was having some success, but at that point, the Web was young and still developing. Ellis noticed website owners and developers wanted more control and management over their content. That’s when Rick Ellis developed a more robust tool called ExpressionEngine and the web development community took notice.
The first version of ExpressionEngine was first released to the public in 2004 as a general-purpose content management system written in object-oriented PHP and using MySQL for storing data.
ExpressionEngine’s publishing features are robust, comprehensive, and highly flexible. Where other content management systems may have limitations in terms of visual design elements and/or display and organization of content, ExpressionEngine fills the needs of these major voids.
Throughout the years, ExpressionEngine has increased its features, flexibility, and popularity among larger businesses in helping build their web presence. These steps advanced ExpressionEngine to version 1.6.8. As its usage continued to grow, more features were requested from site owners and developers. ExpressionEngine developers were now building “application-like” sites and needed even more flexibility and features at their disposal. Ellis Lab listened to these requests and delivered with ExpressionEngine 2.0. This version has been completely rebuilt on Ellis Lab’s “CodeIgniter,” an application MVC framework.
New Features of ExpressionEngine 2.0
Built On CodeIgniter
Acclaimed for its speed and flexibility, CodeIgniter has become the application framework of choice for many of the premiere PHP developers in the world.
New Interface
The ExpressionEngine control panel has been redesigned to make your experience and workflow faster, more intuitive, efficient, and better organized for superior control.
File Manager with Image Editor
ExpressionEngine 2.0 features an incredibly powerful and intuitive file and asset manager that can be used from within the publishing interface or on its own. The new file manager includes the ability to crop, resize, and rotate your images directly in the control panel.
Key Features of ExpressionEngine
Multiple Categories
Each entry can be assigned to multiple categories, and you can create as many unique category groups as you want.
Relationships
You can create relationships between entries in different sections of your site, enabling information to be shared.
Expiring Entries
You can set an expiration date on your entries so they will be automatically removed from your site on that requested date.
Multi-User System
ExpressionEngine is a true multi-user system. Each user can be granted a wide range of privileges, which allows you to define with precise control what each user is permitted to do.
Security
ExpressionEngine has the most comprehensive suite of security features of any publishing platform on the market.
When will ExpressionEngine 2.0 be ready for prime time?
As of this article, ExpressionEngine 2.0 is in Beta form, which is available to the public; however bugs, errors, and minor fixes still need to be worked out. In addition, there are very few add-ons, extensions, and modules that may be needed to accomplish feature requests.
RezStream recommends waiting to upgrade your site until ExpressionEngine 2.2 is released, hopefully in spring/summer 2010. That doesn’t mean you should wait until then if you are thinking of having a site built. RezStream can easily accomplish this process using the current version 1.6.8, which can easily be upgraded to 2.2 when it becomes available. If you have further questions regarding ExpressionEngine, please feel to contact RezStream at 303.872.0220.