Intuitive InSite

Free Christmas Card layout in CSS

I am getting a little Christmas-y

that, and I’ve been commissioned to make a special e-Christmas Card.

Of course, that one is not for public use, but the same basic framed-content CSS layout is available free of charge at Abaryx.com.

As with anything CSS - the frame size can be changed, the content area size can be changed - everything can be changed.

Red Christmas card CSS layout template

The colors can be changed to anything you want - I picked some colors from the Christmas Tree graphic:

• red
• blue
• green
• aqua
• orange
• brown

Add your own family photos and graphics, write your own message, maybe decorate the frame with some background detail - the sky’s the limit.

Blue Frame CSS

Plus, everything is defined in percentages, so it adjusts to fit different screen sizes.

This CSS template uses the ‘overflow’ parameter - learn more and see a sample page at Abaryx.com

Or should it be #css {notes: sticky} ?

The ‘Fun with CSS‘ continues…

CSS StickyNotes has been added at Abaryx.com

CSS from a vintage site designers point of view

dlp

Positioning Elements - Fixed - Absolute - Relative:

Positioning elements on a page with CSS is extremely flexible, and really can be a lot of fun to play with.

Personally, I like the idea of a fixed-position header and/or navigation area to keep the Company/Site name and navigation in view at all times - much like the old “frames” layouts used to do, but without the old “trapped in frames” issues that went with it.

But I was less than delighted with the overall effect.  So… I decided to try a fixed right column instead.

Better, but…if the page was viewed in a smaller browser window than the one I was using, the right column, and the page in general, became unuseable.  ~NOT the effect I was looking for.

But I fixed it!
Learn how I got the fixed position I wanted without losing functionality  - in the “Positioning with CSS” entry HERE.

Will Upgrading to CSS Help with SEO?

In Theory …Yes. In reality …Maybe. The Major Search Engines really are very good at getting to the data they want, no matter how it’s wrapped, and the technology continues to improve.

BUT - using External CSS does make sense:

Style changes can be made quickly and easily, simply by editing a Cascading Style Sheets file.

Using External Cascading Style Sheets does make for some tidier source code. And tidy code can make crawling and indexing a website faster and easier for Search Engine Bots and Spiders.

And, as Will Bontrager says in the excellent “Cascading Style Sheets (CSS); Getting Started” tutorial - “…making style changes to your site’s web pages is not only quick and easy, but also fun.”

…Read the entire article here, and see the CSS 3 column website layout I’m playing with currently.

I just love it when a ‘big namers’ blog post echos and confirms my own website philosophy!

The current ‘big namer’ is Vanessa Fox, and the blog post is “Increasing Search Indexing Coverage With an XML Sitemap“

It’s a good read, and reinforces the importance of utilizing sitemaps for increased website coverage.  However I was especially interested in Vanessa’s advice on how to best make use of Sitemaps, in response to a viewers blog comments question:

Amit Agarwal on 13 October, 2008
Hi Vanessa - Thanks for this informative article - the frequency field of sitemaps has always been very confusing but glad you covered it.
I was reading a recent post on SEOMoz that quoted a discussion from SMX East. It says “Put really important pages in your sitemap, rather than every page on your site. ”
Would love to hear your opinion on this.

In her reply Vanessa discusses 3 ways that sitemaps can be used:

1. Put the important pages in the Sitemap.
2. Put the non-indexed pages in the Sitemap.
3. Put a comprehensive list of URLs in the Sitemap.

In my experience, I have found it beneficial to employ a multi-layered, combination approach. In brief, this includes, but is not limited to:

• Create one ‘comprehensive’ sitemap file listing almost all pages of your website - no ‘crazy parameter‘ laden urls, or common page urls that may not really need to be indexed, ex: form response page urls, contact page urls, mission/privacy statement page urls, etc.
• Create one ‘top level’ sitemap file listing only the main, most important areas of your website.
• Create ‘topic specific’ sitemap files listing corresponding topic relevant urls.
• If indicated, create a sitemap index file listing all of the above sitemap file urls.

I prefer to perform each Website Search Indexing task above individually, over time (days, weeks or months as appropriate), rather than submitting all of the sitemap files at once.  Not because the SE’s specifically prefer it, but to give SE’s (and myself) time to review and confirm error free acceptance of each sitemap file before introducing another.

How do you Apply these Sitemap techniques to your website?

• Ready to try this yourself? - here’s a Sitemap Template to help you get started.
• Don’t have time?  Contact me now for a free, no-obligation quote for your website.