We often get asked to redesign web sites. Most often it's because the information it contains is old. While it's great to refresh the contents of your site, there are some questions you should be asking your designer about the "guts" of the site, or how the site is put together. This is particularly important if maximizing search engine rankings and ease of use for the visitor are some of your goals.

Does the site use "Flash"?

While "Flash" animation is sophisticated, entertaining, and often the best way to communicate a concept or attract attention, you don't want your whole web site designed in Flash. Search engines can't read these files. This will cause your site to slip in the rankings.

Does your site use "Tables" to display it's pages?

Currently, tables are widely used to create a broad range of web page layouts, from the very simple to most sophisticated. They help compartmentalize web page space into logical units for headers, menus, and content. But now there are distinct disadvantages to using tables in web page design, and the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is catching on instead.

Can your site use "Cascading Style Sheets"?

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS allows web designers to easily define how different elements - such as headers, tables, sidebars, and links appear on a web page. These style sheets can then be applied to any web page, affecting the overall look, feel or style of the site.
Changes to style sheets are simple. Because the layout of each page is driven by a single source - the style sheet - one small CSS edit affects all the pages on the web site instantly. Reformatting of multiple pages is eliminated.

While the search to find a designer willing to learn or work exclusively with CSS may take longer, there are many advantages to having a CSS-only web site: faster loading pages, easier maintenance, looking better in a greater number of browsers, and, most importantly, higher rankings in search engines.

The Trouble with Tables

Tables can cause many problems from displaying completely blank pages in some web browsers to inconsistent formatting and alignment issues. The more complex a table layout, the more complicated the problems can become. In addition, maintaining the design can be cumbersome and difficult for a new webmaster.

Nested Tables Take Longer to Load in the Browser

Placing tables within tables are known as "nested". Most good designers will avoid using too many nested tables, but sometimes they are necessary in order to achieve a sophisticated layout. As tables are nested, the time it takes to load each page increases. The result? A choppy download experience for your visitors as they watch tables, text, and images bounce on the screen until the page is fully loaded.

CSS allows pages to load faster and will look better in a greater number of browsers, an added bonus.

Tables Don't Always Print Well

Sometimes a table layout will display well on screen but ends up being cut off on one side of the page when printed. In other cases, tables will force some sections of a web page to be printed on a separate page, frustrating your visitors as they waste paper.

A CSS design however, will eliminate these issues by using a print style sheet, which automatically adapts your web layout into a printable format. The user to your site encounters fewer printing problems.

Tables Deter Search Engines

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is based on the content of the page, not the layout. The optimal web design consideration for SEO is to have your content easily accessible to the search engine spiders. Unfortunately, tables can bury content. Imagine a basic table layout
with a navigation bar on the left side of the page and content on the right. In this scenario, search engines will read the navigation bar first, then the content.

With CSS, your designer can define a section that will appear on the left side of the page, but place it last in the code. This allows search engines to read the content first (where you have placed your all important keywords in the text) and the less important parts of the site, the navigation, last.

Are tables holding your website back?

It's time to find out. Most experts agree that CSS is fast emerging as the new gold standard for web page design. Consider this: with websites constantly jockeying for higher ranking positions, the SEO advantage of a CSS page layout may be worth the cost of a redesign alone.

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Enrico Design can help you get your message to your target audience with impact and memorability in print and on the web. Whatever your organizational goals, we keep you top-of-mind with your customers and prospects. Visit www.enricodesign.com, call 781-631-2520 or contact us by e-mail.

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