Coding - where to start?

[simonsw]

I've been working in digital marketing for a few years and over the past 2, I've concentrated on getting my head around (or trying to!) the world of SEO.

Everything from reading this forum, listening to webinars and re-reading the beginners guide to SEO has provided me with the confidence to put in actionable insights into my work such as on page optimisation, keyword research, link build and passing this knowledge onto co-workers

However, one area I am beginning to realise is just as important is having the ability to code for yourself.

Can anyone out there point me in the right direction of where to start, what I program I should concentrate on? and what I shuld focus my energies on?

Any help would be great

Simon

[ShaMenz]

Hi Simon,

I would suggest starting with the basics - getting a good grounding in HTML and CSS will make a huge difference when you are not restricted to getting someone else to make every change for you. You will also find it easier to work with your tech people once you know the basics.

Once you get a taste for it I suspect you'll find yourself seeking out other languages to learn.

Hope that helps,

Sha

[simonsw]

Thanks Sha

Any good basic sites/forums you'd recommend?

simon

[StoresDirect]

I found this site helpful for learning the basics http://www.html.net/

[ASOS]

I would definitely get up to speed with Javascript too, a lot of sites use that, you might not need to be able to code it but being able to read it and understand it's implications would be helpful.

Also flash, whilst it is a pain, understand how this works with SEO (you can do some things around it) would be good.

But definitely get yourself on a basic HTML and CSS course!

A

[augustos]

W3Schools is a very good source to start w/ HTML/CSS/XHTML.

http://www.w3schools.com/

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

Try some of these places to start.

Lynda.com is excellent. They have some free courses available, but full access is a monthly subscription.

Sitepoint has some great stuff, including this HTML reference

O'Reily has excellent books.

Also, searching on YouTube is good, sometimes way easier to see someone walk through a screencast.

As a language, I would choose PHP/MySQL because its so common, and especially where WordPress uses PHP, that's probably the web language you'll be looking at most.

This is the official PHP site. - Although it can be a bit intense for beginners, but it is the official source.

-Dan

[simonsw]

Brilliant, thanks guys - much appreciated

Simon