SEO and CSS (Part 2)

In our first post of this 2-post exercise, we briefly discussed CSS and its application in terms of site design. We also noted that the efficiency and ease of use it encourages can free up valuable time to tend to other SEO activity.

Today, let’s focus on the actual on-page search engine optimization value that Cascading Style Sheets possess.

When search engines visit a page, they don’t look at the whole and then start analyzing individual sections. They don’t have that ability. Instead, they start reading at the top and work their way down through the code and content. Because those bots aren’t all that bright, they can struggle a little bit when it comes to differentiating the really important stuff from the stuff that just happens to be there (or that just has to be there to make it all look pretty).

So they’re programmed to work on a few assumptions. One of those assumptions is that the important part of any page is likely to be at the beginning of the page. That’s fairly reasonable. Most pages don’t hide their purpose in the last paragraph of a long missive.

However, many pages don’t actually feature the most important things on the top. That’s because other code necessary for design and presentation end up sneaking up toward the top–and remember, those bots are reading the code, too.

CSS tends to fix that.

Search Engine Journal states it pretty succinctly:

“Using CSS, you can organize your code so the search engines see your real content first regardless of where it appears on the page.”

And that, in a nutshell, is why using CSS can help you out in the SERPs. It’s going to make sure the bots see the right things in the right places and it’s going to make working with the site efficient, allowing you to add more content or to pursue other SEO objectives.

SEO and CSS (Part 1)

On-page SEO may not get the same press these days as the various schemes and plans designed to secure inbound links, but it’s still a critical part of climbing the SERPs. One of the best on-page decisions you can make with respect to SEO is utilizing Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS.

As we’ll discuss, this on-page element has SEO repercussions in terms of on-page and off-page SEO.

CSS is a style sheet language that sets out the presentation of a document. In the case of most websites, that means that the CSS handles the formatting of your HTML or XHTML, though it can have application to different mark up languages, too.

CSS was apparently invented back in 1997, but we’ve only really seen its rise to prominence over the past few years. There are many different reasons to like it. It allows for quick, consistent formatting across an entire website. If you decide to make a change in appearance sitewide, you can effectuate the alteration by changing the CSS alone. It also tends to aid quicker loading times for pages (particularly when charts or similar information are involved). In the past couple of years we’ve seen CSS go from “neat idea” to something approaching standard operating procedure.

The benefits of the Cascading Style Sheets aren’t limited to presentation and editing, though. They offer some real benefits in terms of search engine optimization, too.

Before we look at the on-page perks of using CSS, let’s consider a roundabout way that it can aid in SEO. By making site construction, editing and content addition easier and more efficient, it frees up more time to handle other tasks. That means that a CSS user will be able to free up time to do more of the things that make search engines fall in love with websites. CSS is an SEO winner in the time management sense, as Stone Temple Consulting notes:

Using CSS can make it faster and easier to maintain your web site. Helping make the webmastering task easier may also make it possible for you to spend more time doing things that improve your site from a search engine optimization and search engine marketing perspective.

Now that we’ve discussed what CSS is all about and how it can free up time for other SEO tasks, we can take a look at the very real on-page advantages it offers in terms of search engine friendliness. We’ll do that in our next post.

Why Looks Might Matter for SEO

We usually think of design and SEO as two very different aspects of the site management process. Design is usually discussed in terms of usability and aesthetics while SEO conversations center on backlink acquisition.

There is a place, however, where the two concepts overlap. That’s right, good design can be a good way to improve your SEO by encouraging others to backlink to you. Good looks might not be the most important aspect of making a site into a link magnet, but it can help.

Let’s outline a few of the ways that a good-looking site can improve your SEO.

First, if you can come up with a really attractive design you’re more likely to capture a visitor’s attention. In turn, that makes it more likely that they’ll discover the value in your content than if they encounter a plain or ugly site. That improves site performance on the visitor level, obviously, but it also increases the likelihood that the visitor may link back to you. In other words, getting attention is a good way of getting backlinks. We all know that viral content is a great way to get traffic and backlinks. It stands to reason that viral design—a design that really stands out and creates interest—could serve the very same function.

Second, there are some sites that are more likely to link to sites that demonstrate certain design components. Standards compliance is a great example. If your site is fully standard compliant, government sites and some directories will be more likely to link to you. Another great example of this involves communities that are interested in particular design techniques. If you build your site with a great CSS layout, for instance, you might get some link love from those involved in the CSS scene.

SEO isn’t a beauty contest, but good looks certainly can’t hurt as you try to climb the SERPs.