Coding: Codeacademy, Wordpress, Squarespace

While searching for job opportunities I came across a commonality for marketing positions alike. Aside from things like marketing best practices, strategy, and project management skills, coding experience in HTML seems to be a prominent factor in separating the haves and the haves not. 

Marketing is ever-changing, and we are understanding the importance of digital channels. However, what really creates the magic in giving customers their best experience is through websites, tools, apps, and emails, that are all created and managed by excellent coders. Hubspot's blog “Coding the Next Must-Have Skill of the Modern Marketer” talks about how coding saves time, informs marketers of the process, allows for quick fixes, and how being able to code with even basic skills can impact success as a marketer. 

As AI approaches and we think of the jobs that could potentially be disrupted by such an innovation, coding will remain strong. Software development created from humans will still be something the world needs as time moves on. The reason I bring up coding as a career is that whether you are an aspiring marketer, web designer, or coder, there is an increasing number of platforms to help get your foot in the door. 

Codeacademy 

The first platform I explored was Code Academy, which had some great FREE beginner coding resources to explore. I chose to interact with an Introduction to the language of HTML. After completing some basic steps within the course, I found that the user experience on the site was very easy to get working with, I suppose that isn’t surprising from a company that teaches people how to code. Nonetheless, the experience was very hands-on, following instructions, and writing lines of HTML while seeing live webpage updates.

This image shows the Codecademy HTML course layout. To the left of the code (centered in screen) are the instructions and lessons to guide the process, while to the right of the code was an example of the webpage that updated as I made changes. Here I was learning about the different types of headings in HTML, that are very similar to headings in other types of media, including this blog post!

I learned how to display text in paragraphs, id attributes, line breaks, images, and more. If you're unclear on what some of these mean, that's totally normal, I had not a clue either until doing Codecademy. Even though the coding in HTML was for beginners, I felt very accomplished watching this brown bear webpage come to life. 

WordPress

The next platform I started to explore was WordPress. I have a WordPress that is dedicated to my passion for fitness. WordPress is very user friendly and its ease of use is backed up by its popularity. A lot of big businesses use this software, as it is an industry-standard. It’s interesting to see how big businesses do digital so here's an article about “Most Notable Big Name Brands that are Using WordPress”

WordPress in comparison to Codeacademy is different in terms of not needing to be able to code to create something. There are preselected themes to choose from, however, for the people who do know how to code you can still tweak your webpage that way.

I think this factor alone greatly contributes to the success of this company, instead of going at the tech-savvy coders WordPress has a fast and friendly approach to website building. This is also supported by the convenient dashboard navigation WordPress has created. 

The last platform I experimented with was Squarespace, which I would say has an even easier learning curve compared to WordPress for building a website. WordPress and Squarespace seemed very similar at first glance so I was determined to find more information, I came across this article talking about some clear differences between the two. Squarespace also gives you the choice to choose from pre-existing themes to kickstart your webpage. There is a built-in feature to include some custom coding as well. In terms of teaching you how to code, Codeacademy reigns superior. 

Taking courses in Codeacademy, while working on WordPress or Squarespace would be the best of both worlds. Because of the pre-built design elements of these platforms, some limitations and small tweaks might need to be made in order to meet your needs. This is when diving into the code to make quick fixes could add a more specific customization option. Through all this, coding was actually quite fun to learn! Thanks for reading till the end of my blog, I hope everyone is doing okay during these stressful times.