2 Column Fixed Width Layout, Left Side Menu, No Header, No Footer
For the CSS or SEO newcomer, the 2-column fixed-width layout with left side menu would be a good place to begin experimenting with CSS and its impact on search engine optimization. This layout is one of the least complex search engine friendly CSS layouts available, as it makes use of just three divs:
- #bodywrapper. The sole purpose of this div is to provide the background image (in this case, body_bg.gif) for the #contentarea div. Should the height of the #contentarea div be greater than that of the #leftcolumn (menu) div, then the background will tile accordingly.
#contentarea. This is the div that will contain the content of the page. This div is the first div containing content of any type that will appear in the HTML output.
This will serve the dual purpose of providing search engines with a quick and easy way to determine the content of a page, as well as allowing users to view content as soon as possible.- #leftcolumn. This is the menu div. #leftcolumn, like #bodywrapper, contains the background image (body_bg.gif). If the height of the #leftcolumn div should be greater than that of the #contentarea div, then the background image will tile accordingly.
Helpful Hint: When using a fixed-width layout, you may wish to consider creating stylesheets for the print and screen mediums, particularly if your layout is wider than the width of your print media. This is done by using the following code:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="screen.css" media="screen" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="print.css" media="print" />
The CSS
/* This is just here for formatting purposes. This has nothing to do with the layout. */ @import url(https://searchenginefriendlylayouts.com/wp-content/themes/1cxt1iauxdb3qr75671ky145684/files/css/defaultstyles.css); body { /* Always use margin: 0; padding: 0; as margin controls for your page itself. Setting both to 0 ensures that your page will spread to the outer edges of the browser window. */ margin: 0; padding: 0; } #bodywrapper { margin: 0; padding: 0; position: relative; top: 0; left: 0; /* Replace width value with your choice of layout width. */ width: 770px; /* Background of the left side menu. Replace the URL and the background color (#FFFFFF) with your choices for each.) */ background: url(../LayoutImages/body_bg.gif) top left repeat-y #FFFFFF; color: #000000; } #contentarea { /* replace this value with the width of your left column */ margin-left: 200px; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; padding: 0; /* Replace width value with your choice of content area width. */ width: 570px; } #leftcolumn { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; /* Background of the left side menu. Replace the URL and the background color (#3F9BCF) with your choices for each.) */ background: url(../LayoutImages/body_bg.gif) top left repeat-y #3F9BCF; color: #FFFFFF; margin: 0; padding: 0; /* Replace width with the width of your left column. */ width: 200px; }
The HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Your Title Tag Here</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <meta name="keywords" content="Your, keywords, here." /> <meta name="description" content="Your Description Here." /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/layout_CSS/2_col_left_side_menu_fixed_no_header_no_footer.css" /> </head> <body> <div id="bodywrapper"> <div id="contentarea"> <h1>Your Header Here</h1> Your body content here. </div> <div id="leftcolumn"> Left Side Content </div> </div> </body> </html>
