As a marketing specialist, you likely went into the profession dreaming of coming up with the next “got milk” slogan, or of designing a logo that was so incredible people used it as inspiration for a tattoo. While those dreams may have altered slightly over time, understand that the concept of marketing itself has also altered over time. When was the last time that you opened up the newspaper and were absolutely wowed by the ads the fell out of it? That being said, when was the last time you opened a newspaper at all? Most people get the news from their phone or by reading it online and print newspapers and magazines have gone by the wayside. The times have changed and paper is no longer queen. The direction of advertising has, like most other sources of paper, gone digital, and as a professional it’s your job to keep up. While there is a time and a place for paper marketing, moving with the times is also important.

What Tools Are Available?

While there are plenty of avenues that you could take to help you improve your methods for online marketing, one method that is sure to aid you is to train yourself in HTML or Bulma CSS . If you don’t know what either of these are, take a look at the webpage you’re currently looking at. Do you see the text boxes, the margins, the images? All of these are achieved thanks to HTML, or “hypertext markup language” and CSS (“cascading style sheets”).

Does that sound like mumbo-jumbo to you? It’s actually pretty easy to understand once you grasp the basics. Everything online is created using code, and CSS and HTML are two forms of code that factor into designing web pages.

You might consider HTML to be the template for a webpage, though that is a very loose term. HTML affects the way that the pages are laid out: Text positioning, padding between margins and text and that sort of thing. CSS is what gives life to your pages, the element allows you to control even the finest details. You can change font color and style, import pictures and backgrounds and so much more.

Why is it Worth Learning? Using the internet as a marketing tool can be an extremely powerful thing thanks to the potentially huge audience it can reach. Online advertising is hardly new; the first online ad was posted on October 27th, 1994 and ads have only continued to explode since. When you meet clients, generally their first question will be “Do you have a website?” By teaching yourself web page-building code, you are opening doors for yourself later on. You already have the skills to conduct market research and provide data in a logical, well-thought-out manner, but knowing how to work HTML and CSS makes you a double threat — and that much more valuable to your clients. You can provide them with more than excellent service and marketing data that really makes a difference, but you can also help them to design a logo and create a fantastic website for their business.

Is It Hard to Learn? Coding can be complicated, but thankfully when you work with webpage code it is only as difficult as you make it. You have a couple of options: Use a template. There are so many stunning webpage templates that you can download for free and tweak them however you like. This can save you a boatload of time, especially if you are still in the beginning stages of working with code. It might even be a good idea to download a template simply to practice on. If you have no idea where to even begin, check out Youtube for tutorials on getting started. Thousands of videos show you everything from start (“hello world!”) to finish (“congratulations, your website is now live.”).

Start from scratch. If you really want to understand the inner functionalities of HTML and CSS, then start from the beginning. While learning how to program was a mysterious and magical thing that only people in TRON knew how to do in its early days, that is not the case anymore. As more and more processes go digital and the demand for those kinds of jobs gets higher, learning how to code is becoming more accessible to anyone who wants to learn it.

There is no right or wrong way to go about starting your journey into webpage development. Some people find starting from scratch too daunting, and if you’re short on time and start to feel overwhelmed it can certainly feel like that. If you’d rather take a shortcut by using a template so that you get to know the basics, that’s another route and there is no shame in it. However you choose to do it, make it the way that works best for you.

Although it might seem tempting to assume that you can hire a professional webpage developer to take care of your clients’ needs, why not go the extra mile and become that professional? It is never a wasted effort to learn something new. Being able to be a one-stop-shop for each of the needs your clients have is convenient for them and beneficial for you. You can glean new industry experience for your portfolio and learn a skill that can benefit you and your customers for years to come.

Go Live and Iterate

Don’t hesitate to make your website live. It can be a bit nerve-wracking to publish your first website ever. However, you can learn so much by having others see your work. After all, you are just beginning to learn, so there is no shame in not being a superstar yet.

Use analytics tools to study how people interact with your site. You will quickly learn which pages are working and which aren’t. You’ll also get even more insight into how your visual hierarchy is working. These tips will help you get your introduction to web design. Learning this skill can not only be a lot of fun, but it can also be a valuable professional skill. Get started today.