Start Coding as a Digital Marketer

As a digital marketer, it is important to be well-rounded in various skills such as SEO, A/B Testing, Social Media, etc. (Click on the various links to read my blog posts about these topics) Another example of a skill a marketer should somewhat be knowledgeable in is coding.

Coding is important to digital marketers because those who are able to code are less dependent on other people such as coders or developers. Also as a digital marketer, it is important to have beginner knowledge on coding as the technology industry grows over time. A great place to start learning the basics of coding is CodeAcademy. The "Learn HTML" course is a good one to begin with!

CodeAcademy

Here is an example of what a mini-lesson in CodeAcademy's "Learn HTML" course looks like:

This may look extremely chaotic is nerve-wracking but its actually more simple than it looks. CodeAcademy sets up the screen in three different sections. From left to right, the first section begins with textual content

about the element you are specifically learning about, the middle section is then displaying your actual code where you will be able to type new code with the provided instructions below the text under the first section, the last section shows you what your code looks like after it is run.

Below are some "no-code" platforms where you can develop and design your own websites:

Squarespace

Squarespace is great for beginners because it first offers a free trial which will allow you to explore around before making a purchase to further use the site. Rather than having to start from

scratch, the platform also has numerous pre-designed templates that you can choose from to edit to fit your personal style. Squarespace is also super easy to navigate within its design page since it splits up the templates into smaller sections for you to individually edit and design to your liking. Furthermore, along with each section, Squarespace provides little editing windows to use to change elements within the sections, once again for easy use.

WordPress

Similarly to Squarespace, WordPress also offers a large variety of templates that users can choose from to begin their designs. WordPress also allows you to see what your webpage would look like on different

devices such as desktop or mobile by clicking the icons above. WordPress is also great for beginners because each section you add will be considered a separate block which makes it easy to move around and edit as you

further design your page. Although there is a provided template to work off of, WordPress also allows for a lot of creativity around the template. As seen above even after choosing a template to use, the beginning page is almost empty for you to play around with. WordPress is a platform that allows for both no-code and low-code use.

Pineapple Builder

One of the most unique website-building platforms discussed is Pineapple Builder which is based around artificial intelligence (AI). This website is super easy to use in terms of when you don't know what content you want to write about.

Once again with the templates, you can pick whichever one you'd like to use. Then by adjusting and moving the knob around the scale, the template will automatically change to your specific set style.

After choosing your template and design, Pineapple Builder provides an AI Copy Assistant where you can enter keywords about what you want your content to be about and who it is for.

The Pineapple Builder AI will then automatically begin to generate text and content for your website. The provided example above is the generated copy from the keywords of "digital marketing" and "social media" for the targeted audience of small business owners.