I’ve just finished writing this wonderful article about HTML5 (which will not be entirely support until 2021) and I realized that technology moves waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast. However, communication between people and various contents was sped up with the beginning of the ‘word-wide-web’, so its up to us as developers to stay ahead of the curve.

I think there are some really great new applications for web and web browsing (both on and off-line) to warrant a gradual shift to a new web standard. Although, most of us don’t really have the time to stay ahead of the constantly moving curve.

So stay sharp developers, search engine optimizers, and designers, the future has arrived and we have to make the time to keep up with it.

If you’re even the most novice of web designers you know that CSS is our bread and butter. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are what we use to apply graphics and layouts to XHTML, PHP, and .NET. I learned how to write CSS by hand however, there are some pretty amazing tools that can help you with your coding:

• SpeckyBoy.com: 50 Useful Tools for Generating CSS
• SmashingMagazine.com: 50 Useful Tools for Generating CSS
• W3Avenue.com: List of Really Useful Tools for CSS Developers

However, I must caution that you shouldn’t let a CSS tool replace your practical coding abilities. I’ve seen many a developer that was asked to custom build something when the relied too heavily on a tool for too long.

One of the coolest things about WordPress is the linking structure. Understanding the linking structure of WordPress gives you an automatic advantage over your competitor’s SEO.

For instance, this post is placed under several categories which are listed below. Search engine crawlers (bots that search your site for content) can navigate through these links in order to find relevant information and compare that to search engine criteria. Not only are the categories for each post listed under each specific post, but WordPress has a dynamic sidebar (not shown on this blog) which will update your pages, categories, Blogroll, and Tag Cloud.

Blogroll? Tag cloud? I know, I know, I was confused at first as well. The Blogroll in your sidebar is a list of links that you wish to display. Say, for instance I was an electrician, my Blogroll would consist of electrician parts suppliers, electrician resource sites, etc. These relevant links give search engine crawlers a chance to see what your site is connected to. If you are a part of an interlaced web of links (both on and off site) this will tell the crawlers that your site is a place where relevant information can be found about your industry. This is great for Search Engine Optimization.

The Tag Cloud is a little different from the Blogroll. Wikipedia has a great technical description for a Tag Cloud, but for the lamens I’ll break it down into something simpler: A Tag Cloud is a list of links (or ‘tags’) that are relevant to the data produced by your WordPress blog. For instance, my blog’s Tag Cloud would consist of ‘web design, web development, interactive design’ etc. This will also help crawlers in determining the legitimacy of your WordPress in a specific industry compared to your competition.

Lastly, the best kinds of links are the kinds of links that come from other sites in which search engine crawlers have deemed a viable source of information in a specific industry. Say for instance that my electrician blog had its links posted on the largest electrician resource center on the internet. Major search engine crawlers would say ‘Hey, this WordPress site is full of great information and other great sites think so too. He must be a really great electrician.’ If other sites have your WordPress link on their site, that is a huge step in the right direction.

I hope this helped clear up some of the clutter surrounding linking in a WordPress format and how it can help your business by having better SEO.