Forum Moderators: not2easy
Personaly I use CSS for SEO in lot's of ways:
There is also the dark side of CSS for SEO purposes (don't bother looking, I don't do it ;))
What else do you do? and are there any drawbacks to the CSS-SEO techniques?
Nick
H1 tags: Nicely formatted h1 tags for SEO right after the <body> tag for preference.
Background images: Using a bacground image for the 'logo' so the h1 stays the first thing an SE sees.
Well, I have to agree with all of those.
We recently made a commitment that all the sites we optimize will contain valid XHTML and CSS. This allows for smaller pages, better positioning of content in relation to the body, (helps with KW proximity in relation to the title tage as well) and allows us to know that the spiders aren't tripping on any code.
As for the dark side stuff, I can't see the need to use any of those techniques and we certainly can't put a client's site at risk so we steer clear of those techniques.
The only content that gets put in a table is content that should be in one. I've always hated the idea of tables for layout purposes. HTML has been asked to do so much that it was never intended to do. ;)
Another thing CSS allows you to do is change color schemes quickly and typography. Want to see if color contributes to conversion? Change the scheme. Same thing goes for typography.
Code custom classes ahead of time and you can create entire "converstion rate" campaign studies quite easily.
HTML has been asked to do so much that it was never intended to do.
Using an invention in a way that was not envisioned by its inventors is quite common and nothing negative in itself.
Andreas
[edited by: andreasfriedrich at 10:54 pm (utc) on Dec. 8, 2002]
I don't want to stray off topic here, and I agree with the in and of itself bit. I'm just happy to see some progress being made and some of the demands on HTML being decreased by new technologies.
<added>I'm okay with deleting it :)</added>
[edited by: digitalghost at 11:46 pm (utc) on Dec. 8, 2002]
Although they all end up rectangular and rather basic, it allows the button text to count as text links and also gets the page size down some.
Nick
I don't see any drawbacks and the SE's probably don't either. It makes everyone's job easier. Sure people will abuse it, but before long the innocent CSS techniques mentioned above will be as popular as meta tags. It's definitely the future, and I'm glad I'm on the bandwagon now:)
>>>What else do you do?
Using CSS inline to place h tags at the start of paragraphs. I don't actually do it, but it came to mind. Most would probably consider it cheating.
Birdman
But unless the cursor hits the proper spot, the visitor never sees the content. Once I had a coding error in the JS which made it so no one could ever see the mouseover text.
Same thing goes for divs that begin in a negative position. They begin off the screen and then get moved on screen through some user action. The visibility is never set to "hidden", but the starting position still makes them invisible to the ordinary visitor.
And again, unless the visitor triggers the DHTML behavior, the content in that div is not seen, but it's not really hidden either, strictly speaking.
None of this is revolutionary - we see it every day in DHTML menus. But not everyone considers how important the choice of menu "labels" can be for keywords - and those keywords have the bonus of appearing in link text.
and Nick perhaps I didn't understand one thing: Display:none is bad somehow? (I recently just fell in love with it :( )or where u knocking the same-text-color-so-text-hides "trick"
Other than that, I dont even know how to do non-CSS formatting.;) Ah the joys of being a newb :)
Div >>> Tables
what does SEO stand for
The display = none is kind of advertising that it is hidden which makes it easy for SEs to filter if they chose to,
Giving it a visibility that depends on some other action makes it harder to identify.
Nick
In one site that targets a younger audience I have a span class with a title attriubute which explains any abbreviations , then I get a chance to fill in the full names in the title tag, so keeping the page shorter (the main audience like "buzzwords" :)) and user friendly.
And this Company name is "Keyword Keyword & Keyword", branding means they are more known by their "first name" but words 2 and 3 are also important as they describe the nature of the business. It's too long a phrase to keep repeating so my class:
<span class="help" title="Keyword Keyword & Keyword">Keyword1</span>
Using CSS to style the class so it underlines and produces a "help" cursor to aid the viewer.
Q. could you legitimately use a title tag say in the H1 tag to enter a description/catchphrase assuming that the text in the <h1> tag is the company name?
I also use <hr class=" hide /> set to display:none wherever I want a naturally occuring section break so it keeps the page flowing in text readers etc...
Suzy
