Builder Designs | Intelligent marketing for home builders

When building a website, there are two principle ways of structuring HTML that a Web designer uses. Building using table-based layout works just fine and has been used for years but it is difficult and hard to understand, mostly because of the number of table tags. Most designers are using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to format web pages because it is easier to read the textual content that is stored separately. There are many other reasons to have your website coded in CSS that will help you in the future and with its Google rankings.

• CSS is easy to download. It has fewer HTML tags which means that they are quicker to download. Table-based sites are very large and have an increased download time for visitors. This also has an effect on SEO since Google has said it uses the download speed as part of its algorithm rankings.
• Easier readability of the HTML source of pages. This is because the CSS ‘style sheet’ that formats the page is kept separate. This also helps the search engine spiders since they are reading words instead of looking inside of tables for information.
• CSS keeps important key-word phrases at the top of the page, and allows you to layout that information anywhere else on a page. For example, if you had a summary full of key words that you wanted to appear in the middle of the page and keep those words in HTML near the top, this is possible with CSS. Search engines give more credit to information that is near the top of the page.
• Friendlier printable pages. CSS makes it possible to create a style sheet for the screen and another for print, using content on the same page instead of duplicating content.
• Formatting is easy. All the pages of a website refer back to a style sheet. It requires only one small change such as text color, to modify the whole site instead of changing each page individually.
• Using CSS allow you to create different style sheets based on the browser, such as a mobile browser on a cell phone.

It is important to know how your website is built, and these are just some of the major reasons why it is important to use CSS in designing your website. Many designers that have been designing for years have failed to learn CSS, so be sure to do your research when investing your money into a new website, and go with the company that offers plenty of other options.

Staying on top of the latest and greatest in web design is important. It is necessary as designers to be able to evolve using new design techniques, especially since the web is now being accessed by such a broad range of users. Some of the new design trends that started in 2010 are trickling into 2011, and amazing new options are being opened up for designers. Its becoming a virtual playground. Here’s just a few valuable design tricks and trends.

CSS3 Rocks. Web developers and designers have long used CSS as a powerful design tool but with the emergence of CSS3 and HTML5, there are so many cool techniques and effects that are available even animation all within the stylesheet. Some of these awesome techniques include creating buttons (without having to create new images every time), great looking dropdown menus, photo galleries and box shadows. Most browsers such as Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera are now supporting it, so look out for some real cool new design next year.

Mobile Optimized Sites are King. Having a small screen friendly website is more important than ever. It is absolutely worth your time to invest in a mobile version of your website to make your products and services accessible to customers. In 2010, people spent more time online on their phones than any other year. Smartphones are beginning to take over and providers are selling out of them this Christmas. That means having your website content available and formatted for those users is crucial.

Typography is Set Free. Web typography and the trend of using new type on the web is now available to designers. Typography is no longer a stress-related part of designing websites. Services like Google Web Fonts have made it possible to use web fonts much easier and that gives more creative room to web designers.

Expect some great things to come in 2011 in the design world. Stay on top of the newest and most web-optimized experience by upgrading your website and you will not go unnoticed.

Welcome to the new Builder Designs website and blog. We will still be posting articles about out clients and how their websites have helped them generate business. We will also talk about new projects and our process. Make note of the “From the Design Team” posts in the sidebar. This is where myself and other members of the Builder Designs Creative department will post articles on our design process, css, html, wordpress, jquery and other elements that go into creating an effective website.