Tech skills are fast becoming one of the greatest additions to your work tool box; high demand, multipurpose, practical hard skills that can be used in a multitude of settings. With almost everyone needing a website for their business, personal blog or community group – being able to navigate code and website technology is becoming vital in today’s online age of virtual communication. It’s a new year and if you want to pick up some new tech skills for complete newbies the best place to start is with HTML and CSS.
HTML and CSS are the foundation of website design. If you want to build a website from scratch they are the coding languages you will need to know. So what is HTML and CSS?
Let’s start with how a website page is made: HTML
HTML or HyperText Markup Language creates the bones of any web page by structuring content. An HTML page is split into 2 parts: The <head> where all the information and resources the page will be utilizing are kept and the <body> where any information that will be visible on your web page will be kept. HTML is a ‘tag’ language that defines different elements of a page through the use of different <tags>.
So we have the structure down – but it looks hideous… Now we need CSS!
CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a presentation language that is used to make HTML prettier. Without CSS this is what a plain ‘ol HTML page looks like. Not that great looking. With the addition of CSS we can change how our content looks. Ok – to be fair this example is not very ‘wowza’ but you get the idea behind how powerful it is to have control over how your webpage will look. Then you can start making examples like this:
- http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/examples-css-912710
- http://www.awwwards.com/websites/css3/
- http://htmlinspiration.com/top-10/
Now it’s your time to start learning those skills
Don’t get me wrong it can be a long road to learning new tech skills but by getting the basics down first you open a gate way to more complicated coding languages. These 2 coding languages alone can ensure you have the ability to save money building and managing your own website, make changes to that website when you choose and understanding how to troubleshoot issues when they happen. Learning a new technical skill will also open a lot of doors and adds so much value to what you can bring to the table at your current or new workplace. It’s also great as a freelancer or small business owner to know, as much of your time can be spent organizing/fixing/pulling your hair out over your IT issues.
Take a look at the amazing free online materials and courses to learn more about HTML and CSS:
- http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
- http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp
- http://www.codecademy.com/en/tracks/web
- http://htmldog.com/guides/html/beginner/
- http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
- http://www.htmlandcssbook.com/
So what are you waiting for? Go get geeky!
