"I'm a marketer. Do I need to learn HTML?"
This must be a question that all serious or aspiring internet marketers have asked themselves at one point or another.
Do you need to? Probably not.
Should you? Probably, yes.
I know that sounds like a contradiction but let's take a look at the reasoning behind it.
Every web page you view is made up of HTML code. Your web browser reads the HTML and displays the content in whichever way the HTML instructs it. If you're going to have your own website (and it's generally recommended that, as a marketer, you do), you're going to need to learn HTML to build web pages. Or are you?
Actually, no. All you need is an HTML editor with a WYSIWYG interface and it will write the HTML for you. This means that you can build web pages without the need for any HTML knowledge whatsoever.
You can use a WYSIWYG editor online, download and install a free application on your computer or use one provided by one of the many membership sites for you to compose HTML ads and emails to send to the members.
Alternatively, you can use a free website creator such as Weebly to build your website. Again, no HTML knowledge is needed.
If you have your own domain and hosting (highly recommended for the extra flexibility it gives you), most web hosts also provide WYSIWYG website creators, which makes building a website a cinch.
Many marketers opt for a WordPress or Blogger blog but these have their limitations and even here, just a small amount of HTML knowledge allows you to do things which are not possible with the editors.
Which brings me very neatly onto why you probably should learn HTML.
If you have your own website you will want it to be optimized for the search engines. WYSIWYG editors ignore the importance of certain attributes which are necessary for SEO - the image 'alt' attribute, for example, which is used by the search engines. There is no point having a great website if no one can find it!
Also, a lot of the code produced by editors is unnecessary which makes the web pages slow to load and makes it difficult for the search engines to find the actual content.
Not all WYSIWYG editors have all the HTML tools and, even if they do, it can be very difficult to make your content do what you want it to do without editing the code directly. It's possible to waste a lot of time trying to get your web page as you want it when you could have written the HTML code in minutes if you had learned how to do it.
As a marketer, you need to take advantage of anything which will give you an edge. Internet Marketing is a very competitive field. There are thousands of people using the same generic promotional material. The ones who get the most business are the ones who stand out by writing their own unique ad copy and building their own unique web pages. Give yourself a head start by learning to do it properly.
It's understandable that people imagine it will be difficult to learn HTML but, like everything else, all it takes is a little practice and you have the added satisfaction that you have learned a new skill and optimized your chances of success with your business.
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