Coding and Digital Marketing: Squarespace and WordPress

While the digital marketing industry continues to grow, so does the need for coding. Coding is behind every digital marketing campaign, and can make or break a customer's experience with a brand. Let's get into why digital marketers should learn how to code!

Why digital marketers should know how to code

In reflection after going through Codeacademy's HTML course, I realized that there are so many benefits to being a digital marketer that has *basic* coding skills. Here are a few benefits to consider:

• Coding knowledge can save you (and your team) time: having skills to fix minor website issues with format, text, or visuals with coding skills saves both you and your team time in communication and in resolving the issue.
• Coding allows for more creativity: rather than using generic pre-made templates, having coding skills can allow you to create a unique style that truly aligns with your brand.
• Coding can save you money and confusion: when you have coding knowledge, you can understand what would best suit your brand when it comes to your web design needs, realistic goals, and budget.

As I continue to grow as a new digital marketer, I have realized that it's extremely valuable to have basic coding skills to make quick fixes, have more flexibility and creativity, and having the ability to understand all processes that go into digital marketing.

Codeacademy vs. WordPress and Squarespace

While practicing my HTML skills with the aforementioned Codeacademy, I practiced writing code that then transferred into a visual webpage with a format and different sized headers. Eventually, I was able to include visuals in my practice code. This was a great way to visualize my coding learning, and gave me a better understanding as to what happens 'behind-the-scene.'

WordPress and Squarespace are both softwares that allow users to create their own websites via semi-customizable templates or by scratch. I first explored WordPress. WordPress was a bit more difficult to use as a beginner, but after getting used to the website I was able to begin working on a block of text. With WordPress, you can choose to code or to use templates for your desired outcome. As a beginner, the template option created a basic webpage with text that allows for personalization and customization.

I'm not quite ready for the coding side of WordPress, but it's creativity and profitability are incentivizing me to continue learning.

I had an easier experience with Squarespace, which similarly offers templates to users and also allows for custom coding. With the template option I was able to easily create different pages within the website, add text, and more!

As I continued to explore Squarespace, I noticed the custom coding abilities that the site offers to users. It's recommended that if one goes this route, that they have coding experience.

Using both WordPress and Squarespace to create mock websites and explore the possibilities of website building, I better understand the importance of coding in digital marketing.

How digital marketers can utilize these sites

Codeacademy has the mission to "create a world where anyone can build something meaningful with technology, and everyone has the learning tools, resources, and opportunities to do so. Code contains a world of possibilities — all that’s required is the curiosity and drive to learn" (Codeacademy). For digital marketers, Codeacademy offers courses on web development, data analysis, and marketing automation (Codeacademy).

Squarespace is made for user-friendly website building that doesn't require coding, and is a one-in-all tool. For digital marketers, Squarespace offers built-in SEO tools, analytics, blogging capabilities. This is a great option for those new to the industry, as well as working for clients that have a smaller budget or need a simple website.

WordPress is more complex and is a content management system (CMS), which is made for handling larger websites with a lot of data. You can fully customize these websites, but only if you know how to code. For digital marketers with more coding experience or that are working for larger firms, WordPress is the way to go. WordPress offers SEO plugins, analytics, blogging capabilities, and many more responsive and customizable tools for digital marketers.

Coding is valuable to today's digital marketers and opens doors for further creativity and customization - what do you think?

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