Basic HTML – writers and content managers need to learn to code

If you have responsibility for updating a website’s content – either as the website’s owner or a content manager, you’ll no doubt have come across its content management system (CMS). But you may not yet have learned the basics of how to code html in to make it look good.

CMS’s vary in complexity. Some are easy to use and other far more scary-looking with all sorts of options for code updates, themes and plugins. In reality, all you usually want to do it add a simple news article that reads well and looks good. Then move onto the next job on your list. No fuss.

So what about all those styling options in the toolbar?

As well as inserting and proof reading the text, you’ll usually also be faced with many options for how to style it - fonts, sizes, bold and pre-defined styles for headings to name just a few. Knowing what each of them does is one thing. Knowing how to combine all those options to create a good look is something else entirely.

You really don’t want to have to worry about how it looks.

So give yourself permission never to use these options ever again. Never, ever.

There are two main reasons for never using a WYSIWYG editor:

1) The stylesheet already deals with styling

Those options give everyone a veto over the styling created by the website’s designer. Those stylesheet rules were carefully considered as part of the whole design for all a sorts of reasons including brand consistency. So long as the site was built well, all those styles should get applied automatically. There’s no need for you to even being to worry about it.

2) The code is usually bad

The automatically generated code produced by almost all WYSIWYG editors is really bad. Don’t just ask a web developer - they’ll be biased. Ask Google’s SEO ranking algorithm what it makes of poorly structured code. Ask an accessibility screen reader, too. Better still, ask its users. Poorly structured code is also a lot harder for the designer’s style sheet to do its magic on. So you could easily end up with brand soup.

None of this will do your carefully crafted content any justice.

But there is an alternative. And as a content manager, it’s your professional responsibility to embrace it.

Edit the html in your CMS

Most CMS’s give you the option to edit in HTML or code view. You’ll usually find a button or link somewhere on the toolbar of the text editor window.

If you have easy access to your CMS right now, log in and click on it so you can start to get familiar with how it looks.

If you’ve never really looked at code before, this can be a bit scary at first.

But don’t be afraid – it’s just a different way of writing in English. Once you have a small number of HTML basics under your belt you’ll find being in code view a truly liberating experience. Honestly.

And I really do mean a small number of HTML basics. You can learn how to code in just a few minutes.

See my next post in this series, “Simple CMS HTML code for Content Managers”, for a mercifully short but thorough tutorial.

It still looks like hard work. Why should I bother?

For starters, even primary school kids are learning how to do computer programming.

Remember when you used to mock your parents for not being able to programme the video recorder? That’s now you. Your kids (or nieces, nephews, friends children who think you’re cool) will all soon start pointing and laughing at you.

Then they’ll get bigger and take your job.

And you wrote that content for a reason didn’t you? You want people to find it, share it, read it, action it, enjoy it. Right?

Then learn a little HTML code and give it – and you – the very best chance of survival.