What is XHTML?
XHTML is the W3C standard for developing cross browser compatible web sites. It combines all of the display elements of HTML code with some of the functionality of XML. XHTML forces web designers to program more carefully and adhere to strict code standards.
Why Use XHTML on Your Web Site?
XHTML allows a larger percentage of browsers to properly display your pages which means that your customers see your site the way you meant for them to see it, and not with elements strewn all over their page.
For your site to reach the widest potential audience, it is important that it is developed in the most cross browser compatible way possible. XHTML provides that cross-browser compatability. The increase in handheld internet ready devices is forcing web designers to program their sites more efficiently, since most internet ready mobile phones and PDAs require XHTML to be able to view web sites properly. People who use mac computers often see a bunch of gibberish on their screen when browsing the web because some of the tools web design "professionals" use create bloated code that does not display properly.
When somebody comes to your site and sees a total mess of graphics and tables all over the place, it is your brand and your company that suffers. No company looks good with a site that displays badly. If a user who is ready to buy visits your site on their computer at home running Internet Explorer, it may look great. However, if they are browsing around on their mobile phone and your site is not XHTML compliant; it will look terrible. Chances are they will just click right past you and into your competitor's home page. Unfortunately for you, their site is programmed in XHTML and looks perfect.
Information taken from an article by by Chris Hooley of MCP Media, Inc on www.daniweb.com
What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Styles Sheets. CSS is a web language used to format the way that your website looks i.e. colours, page headings, page layout, fonts (text style), background images etc. All this information is contained in the style sheet. For instance if you want all the page content to be in a particular font - arial for instance - this information will be added to the style sheet. If you change your mind 6 months later and prefer the text to be in a different font, then instead of having to update each page we only need to make 1 change in the style sheet and this updates the whole site. This not only saves time and design costs but allows you to have more control over the way your website looks.
