What is CSS? Introduction for Beginners

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When you look at a beautiful website with colors, layouts, fonts, and effects, that’s not just HTML at work. That’s the magic of CSS.

In this post, you will learn:

  • What CSS is
  • Why it’s important in web design
  • How CSS works with HTML
  • A quick look at how to use it

Let’s get started!

What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It’s the language used to style and design HTML web pages.

Think of HTML as the structure (like bricks of a house), and CSS as the design (the paint, furniture, layout).

Example:

HTML Input: <p>This is a paragraph.</p>
Output: This is a paragraph.

Without CSS, it looks plain. But with CSS:

<style>
  p {
    color: blue;
    font-size: 18px;
  }
</style>

Output: This is a paragraph.

Now it’s styled – blue text with a larger font.

How CSS Works with HTML

CSS works by targeting HTML elements and telling the browser how to style them.

There are three main ways to add CSS:

Inline – inside the HTML tag
Internal – within a <style> tag in the HTML document.
External – in a separate .css file (the best practice)

You will learn all these in the next post of this series.

Why Learn CSS?

CSS is a must if you want to:

  • Build beautiful websites
  • Control layouts, colors, fonts, and spacing
  • Make your site mobile-friendly
  • Add animations and effects

It gives you complete control over your site’s visual appearance.

🎯 Real-World Example

Imagine you are building a blog post layout. Here is what HTML and CSS might look like:

HTML:

<h1>My First Blog Post</h1>
<p>Welcome to my blog! This is my first post.</p>

CSS:

h1 {
  color: #333;
  text-align: center;
}

p {
  font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
  line-height: 1.6;
}

Now your blog has a clean, readable style.

Try it using the Free Tool: CodePen

Summary

CSS transforms dull, black-and-white pages into visually appealing websites.

Quick recap:

  • CSS – Cascading Style Sheets
  • It styles HTML elements (fonts, colors, layouts)
  • You can write CSS inline, inside HTML, or in external files
  • Learning CSS is essential for any front-end developer or blogger

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