The idea of using code, or HTML, to enhance the look and feel of your blog is a very intimidating proposition for most of us. I know it is for me, but I've made a conscious effort to become more familiar with it.
Don't misunderstand me, in today's world you can produce an excellent blog without ever understanding a lick of code. But if you truly want to to take your blog to the next level you should become familiar with some HTML and CSS coding techniques.
In the above paragraph I used a simple coding technique to incorporate some highlighted text to emphasize the words HTML and CSS. How did I do this? It's actually a very simple bit of code. Here's how it worked in this example:
"<mark>HTML</mark> and <mark>CSS</mark>"
As you can see there really wasn't much to it. The term "mark" is used in this case to indicate the beginning of a highlighted word or phrase. The use of angled brackets are necessary to indicate the beginning and end of your code segment. In the second set of brackets you must use a forward slash before the word "mark" (in this example anyway) to indicate the end of your piece of code.
This is an example of HTML coding. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets are a bit more complicated and I won't go into them to much here. A great place to learn more about them is at HTML Dog.
Ultimately, if you want to produce a polished and attractive blog you will want to learn all about CSS. But before you can learn how to walk, you need to learn how to crawl right? Become comfortable with HTML first, and you will have a good foundation to move forward with CSS.
With HTML you can create bulleted lists, numbered lists, different classes of headings, as well as creating tables, columns, and forms. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It really does open up a whole new world for you.
I don't pretend to be an expert on coding, but It's something I'm working on and I would suggest you give it some serious consideration as well. I've put together a list of sources to help get you started. Good luck, and let me know how you make out. I'd love to hear from you.
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