Sep 11 2007
Developing with Style Sheets for Search Engine Optimization
There are many people and SEOs out there that have debated over whether or not it makes a difference if you create layouts in CSS and with external style sheets as opposed to using tables and in-line styles. My personal experience has shown me that it does indeed make a difference and can be the distinguishing factor between being ranked on page three of the engines and being ranked in position three. I have noticed that using this form of search engine optimization makes a particularly strong difference with both MSN and Yahoo.
With that in mind here are 3 reasons that moving forward you should develop your websites using style sheets to enhance the impact on your SEO.
1.      Using Style Sheets will raise the overall keyword density and code to content ratio by eliminating the need for redundant code like alignment, height and width.
2.     Style Sheets allow for better control over the layout and design of a website as well as positioning and cross browser compatibility.
3.     By using style sheets and the appropriate keywords you can get your brand new website ranked on the first page of MSN within weeks. While that may not bring in the visitors you are looking for it does provide exposure for your new site and potentially some back links.
There are actually many more reasons to develop your site using style sheets but I am trying to avoid being redundant with all of the other content on the net discussing style sheets and optimization. It would be fair to say that I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents and rant and rave about the phenomenal impact that developing my sites using style sheets has had on my SEO campaigns.If you are new to using styles for layout here are a few good links you can visit to get yourself started. Have fun developing with styles and watching as your SEO improves!
