Learn HTML The Easy Way

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If you are building a house, you don’t start by gathering paint. Instead, grab the bricks and the mortar you need to build a solid foundation. In professional web development, HTML (HyperText Markup Language) serves a similar purpose to the bricks and the mortar of a building. No matter how fancy your website is, you need it to create a strong underlying structure.

At present, knowledge of HTML is necessary for anyone who wants to create, manage or improve websites, from professional developers to marketers and small business owners. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of HTML and explain what you need to know about the language before you start learning. We’ll also highlight a few careers where knowledge of HTML is helpful, and chart your timeline to achieving language proficiency. 

What is HTML?

HTML, which stands for “Hypertext Markup Language”, is the language used to create, structure, and design websites. The term “hypertext” refers to HTML’s ability to link relevant content. As a markup language, tags are used in HTML to define the general structure and layout of a web page, as well as the content elements within it.

At their most fundamental level, before any additional styling and dynamic elements are applied, HTML tags tell your web browser what to display on the screen and in what order. When coding for the web, it wraps or encloses different parts of your content to make sure it appears where, when, and how you want it. Basic HTML tags can determine the font size as well as basic formatting options, such as bold or italic. 

While the type of content, design and dynamism we see on the web has changed dramatically over the last few decades, HTML remains the fundamental framework that drives web design. Even dynamic websites generated by more advanced scripting languages like JavaScript or PHP are based, at least in part, on HTML. This is why learning to code HTML remains essential for web developers.

Basic HTML tags and elements

If you enroll in a course that covers the basics of HTML, one of the first concepts you’ll learn will be elements. Elements structure the page content by enclosing it in “tags” that provide instructions on how that content should appear.

Each HTML tag begins with an open angle bracket (<) and is closed with a closed angle bracket (>). A forward slash before the element’s name closes a particular tag, and HTML tags can be nested within each other. It is essential to close each HTML tag that you open. To give you a quick HTML tutorial for beginners, here’s one of the most basic HTML tags: “p”, which stands for “new paragraph”.

As you can see, the opening “p” tag starts the paragraph and the closing tag ends it. This entire HTML fragment is called an HTML element, Other very basic and common HTML tags include “strong” for bold content, and “i” or “em” for italics.

Structure of an HTML element

A basic HTML element consists of three parts:

  • Opening tag: This is the name of the element, enclosed in angle brackets, as above, with the paragraph tag.
  • Closing tag: is the same as the opening tag, but has a forward slash before the element name. Forgetting a closing tag is a common mistake and can lead to conflicts or unexpected results.
  • Content: This is the content that the tags should display and can include text, images, or other featured material. 

Headlines, paragraphs, and lists

While some people write HTML directly in a plain text editor like Notepad, you can use specialized HTML editors to make the coding process easier. HTML editing software can help you produce code with fewer errors by debugging as you type. Using an HTML editor can also alleviate common problems, such as missing closing tags or missing “alt” attributes for image elements. 

In HTML5, you can choose to use CSS for most of your styling. However, basic HTML elements can help you distinguish one part of your writing from another. Titles or header text are some of the most commonly used types of HTML elements. By using headings, numbered in size from 1 (the largest) to 6 (the smallest), you can define sections of your text with these simple <h1> </h1> or <h3> </h3> tags.

HTML lists can also help you organize your content by creating numbered or bulleted lists that make your written content clearer and more concise. There are some types of lists; for example, while the <ul> tag creates an unordered or bulleted list, the <ol> tag creates an ordered or numbered list. Each item in the list is enclosed in <li> tags. 

You can also use HTML color codes to define the colors of your text. You can use CSS for more color complexity, but you can access the full scale of hexadecimal color codes in any HTML document or web page.

How long does it take to learn HTML?

The time it takes to learn HTML can vary from person to person. If you already have some technical knowledge or have dabbled with HTML, you can update your HTML in a matter of weeks or months. 

You can also learn how to use HTML along with other key technologies, like CSS and JavaScript, as part of a structured learning experience, such as a coding bootcamp that focuses on full web development. These intensive programs can be completed in three months full-time or six months part-time. They will equip you not only with HTML expertise, but also with a complete set of web development knowledge. Once you graduate, you’ll be ready to start looking for entry-level coding jobs right away.

What other skills/languages should I learn?

If you are considering a career in web development, you’ll also need to complement your knowledge of HTML with CSS and JavaScript skills. Understanding how to use these three languages is essential if you plan to make a living as a front-end web developer. If you want to go beyond front-end basics and get into full-stack development, you can slo study coding frameworks like Bootstrap, Django, or Node.js, as well as database query languages like SQL and back-end scripting languages like Python.

Accumulating these abilities will put you on the path to full-stack development. While front-end developers focus primarily on the user-facing aspects of a site, full-stack developers combine front-end development tactics and back-end (server-side) techniques that give websites their functionality.