What is HTML ?

 

What is HTML?

HTML: A BASIC DEFINITION

TLDR: HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a coding language used to define parts of web pages or mobile apps to the web browsers that visit them

Sound basic? That’s because it is! HTML is probably THE most basic building block in the web development process, and that’s what makes it so critical to learn. To expand on the definition above:

• HTML tells browsers which part of a webpage is a header, which is a footer, where paragraphs belong, where images, graphics, and videos are placed, etc.
• Browsers take that HTML content and translate it into what you see on your device’s screen.
• HTML is an industry standard language that’s guaranteed to be understood by all web browsers (applications like Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome),
• HTML is also the universally accepted standard for making websites “findable” by search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing based on relevant search terms (i.e.: the search words you type into the search bar).

You won’t get far building a website without structured, searchable webpage, and that’s why HTML is one of the first languages you should learn if you’re interested in coding. But what does learning HTML involve?

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Learning HTML—How Long Does it Take and Where to Start

If you’re new to tech, learning HTML might seem like a big undertaking, but don’t panic! Learning HTML is a lot more doable than you might think.

THINK WEEKS NOT YEARS

The time frame for learning HTML isn’t years, and it isn’t even months:

You can realistically get familiar with HTML in a matter of weeks.

And—after you spend those weeks getting up to speed with HTML (and its sister language CSS, used for defining things like fonts, background colors, and page layout styles)—you’ll be in position to start doing paid work, like building a website, creating a custom email template, or working as a social media manager.

Not looking to do developer-specific work? No problem. It’s still worth spending a couple of months getting aquainted with HTML. Why? Because adding HTML to your resume can help bump up your salary at any job. Meanwhile, if you DO want to be a full-service front-end web developer, you’ll eventually need to add skills like JavaScript to your repertoire, but HTML is your first stop toward a solid coding foundation.

YOU CAN START LEARNING RIGHT NOW

If you’re ready to learn HTML it’s as easy as starting right now with free online guides like this tutorial(opens in a new tab) from the Mozilla Developers Network (the people behind the Firefox web browser). Then, when you’re ready to take the next step (AND add complimentary skills like CSS and JavaScript), consider a paid, instructor-led class like our Skillcrush Front End Web Developer course. This online class is designed to be completed in just three months by spending an hour a day on the material.

How Does HTML Look Like?

Although you might not realize it, there’s a good chance you’ve already been exposed to HTML. If you used early personal websites like Myspace where you could customize your page with commands inside <>, you were actually using HTML code. Those bracketed commands are called HTML tags, and they’re a basic component of HTML.

For instance, you know when you visit a website and see a text headline followed by a bunch of paragraphs? The web browser you’re using can tell the difference between a paragraph and a headline because each has its own HTML tag. HTML tags look like this:

<h1>This is a headline</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>

When you use HTML tags to create something like a headline or a paragraph, you are creating “elements.” Elements are the individual HTML components that make up a HTML document or webpage, defined by those opening tags (<p>) and closing tags (</p>), as well as the information between them (This is a paragraph). A web page’s HTML elements can consist of different types of content and media, including:

In order to place any one type of media on your webpage, you have to use its particular HTML tag. For example, images get <img> tags, videos get <video> tags, and so on.

Elements can also include:

• Meta elements
• Structural elements

Meta elements are HTML elements that users don’t see when they’re visiting a webpage, but give web browsers additional information about the page—things like keywords, the author of the document, the time and date it was last modified, etc. These are mainly used for record keeping on the web developer’s end or for optimizing the website for search engine results, making the site more likely to appear when people Google the site’s keyword topics.

Structural elements are the HTML elements used to organize the content of a web page. Structural elements like <div> and <span> are used to denote block-level content (content that takes up the full width of its “container” or page) versus inline content (content that only takes up the space between its tags), while elements like <header> contain the header content of a page, <footer> contains the footer content, etc.