I reviewed an excellent book on this topic recently that should be of interest to anyone who finds this blog post by searching regarding table based design or CSS. The book is the Zen of CSS Design.
When I learned HTML 3 a few years back, I enjoyed the power to publish content to the web where people from all over the world could access it easily. But as the web projects I developed became larger, I wished for a way to control design elements in a more centralized way.
In this pre-CSS world, if text links throughout the site were not visible enough to attract users’ attention, each link or at least the body element on each page would need to be edited to change the behavior and display of the text links throughout the site. In addition, the most frustrating aspect of design with HTML alone was being forced to use tables, designed to organize tabular data, to control the visual presentation of documents. Spacing needed to be done with images, and the code did not make sense in a text browser.
When I was introduced to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in its first incarnation, CSS was limited largely to the control of text and link behaviors. Even in its nascent form, it showed a great deal of potential to save repetitive work for the web designer. The many benefits of design with CSS include a lower page weight and faster load time, greater accessibility to text browsers and handheld devices, greater control over type display, cleaner (X)HTML code that often results in better search engine results.
Now that I am free of table based design, I have no desire to return. Of course, I still think tables should be used for tabular data like calendars and well, tables. The chief arguments against CSS design for visual control are that it is difficult to learn (true, but it is well worth the effort) and that it requires hacks in order to render equally well in current and older browsers. These are valid reasons to think twice before learning CSS, but not valid reasons to avoid using it if you already have mastered its intricacies. In fact, as skill level with CSS increases, it becomes almost imperative to use it rather than tables.
When I started using CSS 2.1 for document layout, I made the mistake of mostly substituting page divisions (
tags) for table cells. Though this increased the accessibility of the pages I designed and enabled more ease in maintenance and making site wide changes, it merely replaced one sort of cluttered code with another less cluttered code. As my comfort level increases, I have found ways to style natural page elements (semantic code) rather than introducing page divisions. So as knowledge increases, code can become increasingly simple, semantic, and accessible. As this takes place CSS begins to tower over tables as a visual design tool in its flexibility and power.
The next frontier that I must take my small design firm through is the mastery of accessibility to audio interpreters, such as screen readers, handheld devices, and full Section 508 compliance as mandated by law. Imagine a screen reader parsing a table based web design, “table data, image, table data, welcome to this web site, table row, table data, image, table”. You get the point. Within a mature understanding of CSS and semantic code, these standards can be gracefully implemented without a loss of visual appeal and without an increased page load. This is the future of web design, a virtual world with as few barriers as possible.
Related Web Links
Posts on various sides of this issue:
Tutorials:
February 9th, 2005
A Review of Shari Thurow’s Book, Search Engine Visibility
If you have a product or service to sell online, the most important competitive advantage you can leverage is carefully targeted content. It is not glitzy advertising or high-tech design techniques using the latest technology though I am convinced that this too is important. Shari Thurow’s book, Search Engine Visibility, is a reference book that I constantly turn to as I plan each new web site’s architecture and content.
As a consumer of web design services and possibly of web content services provided by a writer, you may benefit from reading this book prior to hiring a design firm. Ultimately, you will own and benefit from your web site. It is best that you have a clear plan in mind for the content you wish to deliver to your customers or clients. Much of this book is directed specifically to web designers, but there some key concepts of which I want my clients to be aware.
Shari does an excellent job of analyzing the foundation of a successful web site. There are basically three components of this success:
- The text component includes the selection of relevant keywords and how to structure your web site around those keywords and phrases via natural themes extracted during your research. It also includes the placement of keywords and correct usage of title and Meta tags.
- The link component is largely related to your web site’s architecture, or the way pages and folders on your site relate to each other via navigation hyperlinks. Shari discusses best practices that increase a web site’s usability from the standpoint of search engines and of site visitors alike.
- The popularity component refers to the importance assigned to your web site by search engines. A more popular web site will appear above less important sites in a search engine’s results. This component is affected by how well you and your web designer have implemented the other two components, but also is highly influenced by incoming links from other web sites. Some of the most important incoming links come from web directories such as Yahoo!, Looksmart, and the Open Directory.
Though I rarely recommend a book wholeheartedly to my clients and peers, this volume definitely makes the cut. It surpassed my expectations and I have seen results by following Shari’s sage advice. While room remains for more in-depth books on this topic or on related sub-topics, this book is an excellent introduction to search engine visibility.
Title: Search Engine Visibility, First Edition
Author: Shari Thurow
Publisher: New Riders Publishing
ISBN: 0735712565
Date: January 2003
Format: Paperback
Pages: 297
Cover Price: USD: $29.99 CDN: $46.99 UK: �23.50
Other Search Engine Visibility Resources:
January 22nd, 2005
Introducing Jill Whalen
Below is a helpful SEO question and answer session from Jill Whalen of High Rankings. Since I thought all the issues discussed in her article, Dispelling Some SEO Myths, would be of interest to my readers and clients, I have published the entire article. Please read on to dispell many of your Search Engine Optimization myths! Jill responds to some common misconceptions voiced by Pat. How many of these misconceptions do you share?
Pat’s Question
I have been doing website development for a number of years, mostly for a big organization where optimizing for an intranet didn’t mean as much as it would for the Internet. So I’ve read books and bought SE CD’s to bring higher rankings, and it has helped!
I have not completely read all your information, but I was wondering if you have things in your literature where you have certain guidelines, like using so many characters/words in the title, or so many characters/words in your description, or repeating keywords so many times in your main content? Everyone seems to have different ideas, but I’d like to see where someone has these kind of guidelines and results to back them up.
I also have the following questions:
- Is manually submitting each site better?
- Once submitted …do you keep submitting …if so how often? (So you don’t get kicked out.)
- The Microsoft submit supposedly submits to hundreds of search engines and directories. Is this good or bad (the number of SE’s submitted to)? I heard the more the better …but there are some pretty cheesy search engines out there!
- What about stop words …do you cover this?
- I heard you should leave out commas between keywords …any truth to this?
- If you are indexed in the Open Directory (DMOZ) do you re-submit to directories?
- Are there truly reputable submission companies…and might I add …that get results …proven results?
- What about the Google AdWords program?
- One more thing…SEO stands for search engine optimization, correct?
- I also have a few sites that I’m just starting to build, and they are one-page sites… a separate domain for each site. These sites are linked to a main site, as a 2nd way to find the main site. No trying to mislead anyone, just trying to work off separate keywords and types of products. Are these okay?
Jill’s Response
When I first read Pat’s email and questions, I almost thought it was a joke email, because it was as if Pat had found every SEO myth ever discussed, and then asked me about them! So I wrote Pat back and basically said that he/she had obviously gotten ahold of some really old info and that he/she should erase it all from his/her memory bank and start fresh by reading my articles.
Pat wrote back very quickly and again asked if I would at least answer some of the questions posed. I realized that Pat really was not joking, and that if he/she had these questions from reading some bad info that is still out there somewhere, many of you may have similar ones.
So here’s what I wrote back to Pat:
Dear Pat,
There are no specific guidelines for number of anything in SEO (which, yes, stands for search engine optimization). There’s no number of words that is optimal in the tags, or in the copy, or in anything. Every page is unique and the right number for one page won’t be the same as for another page. SEO is really more art than science, when done correctly. (See “The Art of SEO”
http://www.highrankings.com/issue105.htm#seo.) Many people are looking for a magic bullet or formula that will propel their sites to the top, but there just isn’t one. And even if you found one that worked today, chances are it wouldn’t tomorrow.
Let me answer some of your questions and you’ll see what I mean:
Is manually submitting each site better?
You don’t actually need to submit your site at all to search engines — neither manually nor in an automated fashion. They all have spiders that “crawl” the Web and find all pages that exist, as long as there is a link to them from a page they already know about.
Once submitted …do you keep submitting …if so how often? (So
you don’t get kicked out.)
Never.
The Microsoft submit supposedly submits to hundreds of search
engines and directories.
It’s a waste of time and bandwidth.
Is this good or bad (the number of SE’s submitted to)?
It’s neither, just useless.
I heard the more the better …but there are some pretty cheesy
search engines out there!
“The more the better” is incorrect. There are only 4 major search databases that matter: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves. Their databases power all of the other engines that make a difference.
What about stop words …do you cover this?
There’s no such thing as stop words. You need to use all the words it makes sense for you to use regardless of whether someone somewhere has classified it as a “stop word.”
I heard you should leave out commas between keywords …any truth to this?
It makes no difference. The Meta keyword tag won’t actually help your site rank highly for the keywords that are important to it, and commas don’t matter as they’re treated as a space anyway. Yahoo does know about the words and phrases you put in this tag, and they recommend using commas to separate your phrases. I’ve always used commas as well, but again, it’s not going to matter for the keyword phrases that matter the most anyway, so don’t worry about it.
If you are indexed in the Open Directory (DMOZ) do you re-submit to directories?
You can submit to directories one time (not search engines, but directories). If you’re already listed in DMOZ, there’s no need to resubmit to them, but there’s nothing wrong with submitting to other directories that are unrelated to DMOZ.
Are there truly reputable submission companies …and might I add…that get results …proven results?
No there are not, because submitting is unnecessary and useless, so submission companies are useless as well. Please note that I’m not talking about paid-inclusion companies here. They are a different breed than submission companies. For some sites, paid-inclusion companies may be useful. Submission companies — no. Paid-inclusion companies — maybe, depending on your needs.
What about the Google AdWords program?
Google Adwords is a great program if you know how to use it correctly so that every dollar you put in pays off. (See today’s interview with Kevin Lee for more info on PPC landing pages.)
I also have a few sites that I’m just starting to build, and they are one-page sites.
One-page sites will have a very hard time doing well in the search engines because it’s doubtful they will provide enough useful information to users, and thus search engines will be unlikely to take much notice. That said, they could do okay if enough other sites find them worthwhile and link to them, but that will rarely happen.
It sounds like your one-page sites are simply “doorway domains,” which are definitely not a good idea.
Hope this helps clear up a few things for you. Now seriously, please go read my articles and clear your mind of all the SEO myths that you’ve picked up!
Good luck!
Jill Whalen of High Rankings is an internationally recognized search engine optimization consultant and host of the free weekly High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter.
She specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations and seminars. Jill’s handbook, “The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines” teaches business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web sites so that they make sense to users and gain high rankings in the major search engines
January 20th, 2005
