Coding 101: How it can help Digital Marketers

As the field grows increasingly more competitive, it can make all the difference as a digital marketer to be an expert in multiple skillsets. Today's blog post is focusing on one of those in specific.... CODING!

Why is it important?

• It will enhance your marketing skills - As a digital marketer, we love to optimize and improve performance any way we can. Having the basic knowledge to make these changes on your own can boost the effectiveness of your campaigns.
• Improve collaboration with developers and the tech team - No need for misunderstandings and bothering the web developers! Understanding the process will allow you to get more done in a shorter timeframe, without all the unnecessary back-and-forth.
• Helps you understand what's possible and raise your innovation - Knowing the ins and outs of the technology that you work with, will allow you to experiment and pursue original ideas.
• Overall, impress your employers and coworkers! - Being able to go above and beyond of what is asked, is guaranteed to make you more desired as a marketer.

Where do I start?

First things first... Learn the language.

Code Academy

Code Academy is a digital platform that you can learn up to 12 different programming languages. They have endless catalogs of FREE tutorials, and they guide you through a basic understanding of web development.

Look how far I was able to get; just within 30 minutes of the Learn HTML lesson! It's a great resource for those learning how to grasp the world of coding, with various subjects such as data science, or cybersecurity. There's plenty of courses to explore - whether you're a beginner or a pro.

WordPress

WordPress is a great option if you're building a fairly large and professional website. It allows for a complete customization but it is harder to operate due to the fact they often require code and third-party plugins.

The editing happens in the back of the website, which means you can't see the changes as you make them until you preview or publish it. However, if you do have the time or coding skills, you're able to choose exactly what your site needs and don't need to stick to a template.

Depending on what you opt for, you’re typically looking at costs of between $4 - $45 per month. It is a subscription system with four plans and each one offers a free domain for one year! You can also hire a WordPress developer to help you build and maintain the site, which would increase your costs.

Squarespace

Squarespace is another great option to build websites, especially if you're not savvy with coding just yet. They have 140+ beautifully created templates to choose from depending on your website category. I've selected a Community & Non-Profits type to compare with the previous WordPress example.

Squarespace is great if you want a visually appealing website without the hassle of coding. It's super quick and easy to manage, and has a great template editor to make up for their lack of full customization.

The drag-and-drop template editor takes almost no effort, and you can view the changes all in real time with their on-page editing feature.

Squarespace prices are also a bit easier to understand. It is a subscription-based model much like WordPress, but you simply purchase the desired plan out of four options.

Overview

I hope this was a good beginning to your coding journey as a digital marketer. Build your portfolio with some of the above resources, and you can even boost your own Organic Reach.

Go build some websites!