7 replies to this topic

[scaredycat]

Hi, I'm a newbie both here and to SEO. I've been developing web sites for years, but mostly for intranet applications etc so I never had to worry about SEO or anything like that. Now I'm starting up a freelance business, and have designed myself a website using table based layout, and in my SEO research find that this is a really bad thing to do, and I need to learn css layout. My question is, how much difference does this make, really? My site's only been up about 2 months, and I have barely any links to it. Am I better off redesigning it as CSS or working on getting some links?

Thanks much for any advice

Cheers

[lyn]

There are lots of good reasons for learning and using CSS but, truly, it won't make much difference from the standpoint of SEO. Don't go overboard with nesting tables within tables, bloating and confusing the code, and the bots will have no trouble indexing your pages. Focus on content, then encourage links.
Meantime, I'd still recommend getting your head around CSS to make your own life easier in the long run while you establish a foundation of standards compliance for future site development.
L.

[Randy]

Welcome Janine !

What Lyn said. It won't make any difference to the engines, but there are lots of other reasons to start using CSS.

Also I made your signature into a real one that you won't have to type each time. You can edit that under "My Controls" if you would like.

[pfschwartz]

Are you talking about doing your whole site with css, or just using an external stylesheet?

I haven't totally switched my sites over to a tableless layout yet, mainly due to time constraints. But I think every site should be using a stylesheet--just to cut down on load time and for easier changes.

[Adam Rivard]

At the start of any site you should make sure your page is visually appealing because the customers that you do attract must return or you are wasting your time. Your site doesnt have to be prefect it just has to appeal. Once you think your site is good enough to appeal to people than you can solely concentrate on links. Links will make your business and without them and no ranking your site has no credibility.

[Tom Philo]

For long term ease of maintenace - saving you lots time when working on the site in the future - it is much better to go to using CSS right now before you get too many pages out there.

Also use server side includes whenever possible for headers, footers, addresses, and so on, that also saves a LOT of work of having to change lots of pages. Go to 1 file, change it, and now every page on the whole site is updated.

[SearchRank]

I chime in with the others that whether you use tables or CSS for your page layouts won't make a bit of difference SEO wise.

I like CSS for font attributes because it is a breeze to change a font style or color across the board and you also do not have all those font attributes in your html.

[scaredycat]

Thanks all, for your great advice! I'm going to start redesigning my site to totally use css layout, in between working on my clients sites (I've only got two so far, so that shouldn't be too hard...) also in between learning about SEO ofcourse!

Thanks for sharing your expertise, and saving me lots of time!

Cheers