Using CSS is a helpful way to achieve better SEO performance. These files can help you optimize your website by making it easier for search engine crawlers to find, understand, and index your website. Keep reading to learn how to use CSS for better SEO performance.
CSS files describe how HTML elements are displayed on a landing page and are used to customize the look and feel of a website. Short for, “Cascading Style Sheets,” they are used to change the appearance of a website by specifying fonts, colors, and other styling elements. CSS is essentially the syntax used to structure a web page’s aesthetics. These style sheets can also be used to position elements on a page or to provide page layout and design.
CSS is a powerful tool used to control the look and feel of a website. Here are a few other functions that CSS can do:
These style sheets can even be used to create animations and other interactive elements.
CSS files can impact SEO because they impact page speed, performance, and how easily Google crawls and renders content. Page experience is a ranking factor and is measured primarily through Core Web Vitals. If you make a change to your CSS file that decreases your CWV metrics, then yes, it can be detrimental to your website’s keyword rankings.
That’s why specific CSS issues will be flagged in the Search Atlas site auditor if they are found on a page.
Resolving performance issues related to CSS files can help improve the performance of your content, and therefore how often, and how high up in the SERP results, that Google promotes it.
The major benefits of CSS files to SEO include:
CSS code can be placed in one of three places: inline, internal, or external. The different types of CSS files have different effects on how it is applied to the HTML document.
Keep in mind that a CSS file is essentially a list of rules that tells the browser how to style the different elements on a web page. The browser reads the CSS file and applies the styles to the elements on the page as it renders the page. The CSS file contains a number of style properties that can be applied to an element. Some of the more common style properties include the following:
Inline CSS is placed within the HTML document between the opening and closing tags of the element you want to style. This type takes precedence over other types, meaning that it will be applied to the element regardless of whether there’s other CSS styling applied to the element. This happens because inline CSS is written directly into the HTML code.
An example of Inline CSS style will look like this in HTML:
<h3 style= "color:blue heading with inline</h3>
Internal CSS is defined in the <head> section of a web page with a <style> element. It is one of the most widely used for styling a web page. It can be applied to a whole web page, but not multiple, and it is often used for websites with only a few pages.
With internal style sheets, the CSS instructions are actually written into the header of the HTML page. Instead of referencing an external document or writing into the HTML code, it’s placed within the header for search engines to see when they first crawl the landing page. Internal CSS is most useful when a single page requires a unique look in comparison to other pages on a website.
An example of Internal CSS style will look like this in HTML:
<head> <style> h3 {color: blue;} <style> </head>
External style sheets are first saved as CSS files (.css). Rather than adding specific lines of CSS code to every HTML element, all of the changes can be specified through one file.
To use this type of style sheet, the HTML code must include a link to the external style sheet. In HTML, it will look like this:
<head> <link rel="stylesheet" href="heading.css"> </head>
Most people would agree that an external style sheet is most efficient simply because all of the changes are on a dedicated document.
When it comes to opening CSS files, you’ll need a web development application or a source code editor.
Some popular examples include Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe ColdFusion Builder, and Microsoft Visual Studio Code. When you open a CSS file in a text editor, you are looking at the styles that will be applied to the elements on a web page.
When using CSS files, it is important to ensure that all coding is valid and up to date. Proper coding will help ensure that the search engine crawlers can properly read and index your website, in addition to the CSS producing the proper style and aesthetic preferences for the user on the front end. Working with skilled web developers who understand SEO, or using the Search Atlas site auditor to identify any issues, is the best way to make sure your the syntax of your CSS is accurate and helping, rather than hurting, your performance.
CSS and SEO are a match made in heaven. CSS style sheets can help simplify the code on your website, which makes it more readable and indexable. Here are ways to use CSS for better SEO:
Overall, utilizing CSS style sheets to optimize SEO performance is a powerful tool, as it can increase website speed, help create semantic HTML structures, and provide better readability for search engine crawlers. This can help improve website rankings and traffic, thereby increasing visibility and providing a better overall user experience.
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