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Guest author Blake Waddill lays it all out: if you don’t know how to code, you darn well ought to!
3 Reasons You Should Learn To Code
-by Blake Waddill
At some point every successful blogger has to decide if they are going to write/edit their own code and be self-sufficient or rely on others to get things done. Your theme is the first thing visitors notice when they get to your site (even before content), so it is important that your page looks as nice as possible. Believe it or not, your theme also has a profound effect on your SEO. Most people don’t have a lot of experience with photoshop, editing HTML, CSS, and PHP, and thus, choices must be made. Most bloggers choose one of 4 major options:
- Have a generic (usually ugly) free theme. Pros: Free, You don’t have to learn anything Cons: Ugly, Unprofessional, There are tons of blogs with the same exact theme.
- Pay for a premium professional theme. Pros: Pretty, Professional, You don’t have to learn anything Cons: Cost money, You have to pay each time you want to change it.
- Learn to code and create/edit a free theme. Pros: Free, Pretty, Professional, You can edit it or fix problems anytime Cons: Time consuming, Possibly ugly/unprofessional.
- Pay for a premium theme and learn to edit it an unlimited number of times. Pros: Pretty, Professional, Save money on any changes required Cons: Cost money.
There are 3 major reasons I decided to learn to code.
1. Learn Code To Make Your Site Look More Professional
One of the biggest reasons I wanted to learn to code was to make my site look more professional. If you come to a site that is ugly and hard to navigate, you won’t even take 20 seconds to read the content. This is the free theme I found:
Propsblog Before ATF (Click to see full length)
The main reason I picked this theme was it had a simple 3 column format that I believed would be easy to edit. If you click on the image, you’ll see a full length image of the page. Notice the 125 x 125 ads do not fit well. The sidebar headers looked funky, the navbar was out of place, and the title looked unprofessional.
I did a quick search on Google for photoshop logo tutorials and whipped up a nice little logo to make the site feel a little more professional. After I finally settled on a logo, it was time to dig into the code. The author of the theme had a few comments in his code saying where to edit the code to insert the logo, but I had no clue what I was looking at.
Website-in-a-Weekend to the rescue, I sent Dave a quick message asking him if he could figure out what I was doing wrong. Like I good teacher, Dave said “I’m too busy, figure it out on your own.” Just kidding, I’m lying. He actually gave me links to several excellent resources including an article about when to use relative positioning which I later used to move the search bar from the top of the screen into my navbar.
After playing with just about every conceivable variable in the CSS, my site finally reached the point it is at now. I still have a lot to do, but because I took the time to learn to code like Dave recommended, I’ll be able to make the change I want on my own time.
Propsblog After ATF (Click to see full length)
2. Learn To Code for SEO
There is no doubt my site looks better now than it did when I started. Looking at the two, you would might not even believe they were the same theme at one point. The search engines feel the same way.
It turns out search engines don’t just look at the on site content, but at the code behind the content also. Search engines use META tags and headers (<h1>, <h2>, etc..) to get an idea of what the important things are on your site. When a search engine sees words with a header tag, it puts more weight on those words than just normal text. The theme I picked (and most other free themes I’ve seen) give the sidebar titles H2 tags and give post titles H3 tags. What is more important to you, the title of the post or “sponsored links”
Rocket Science!
WIAW already has detailed why the Title tag is important. If you want to know how search engines see your webpage check out website grader (WIAW got a 99 out of 100… Shocker, I know).
3. Learn To Code to Save Money
Buying a premium theme can definitely save you time, but what happens when you decide to change something small? Are you going to pay someone to do it for you? What happens when you want to overhaul your whole theme? Another $20-$160+ down the drain! If you get a nice premium theme like Thesis (buy Dave a beer and use his affiliate link if you want to buy Thesis Theme), you can customize things without much help, but if you get a theme from Woo Themes or Theme Forest, you’ll either have to learn to code or pay someone to make changes.
Summary
If you’re serious about blogging, choice 1 isn’t an option. You’re either going to have to shell out money or learn for yourself. Take the time to learn some code, and you’ll be free to change your site anytime you like and save a ton of money in the process. You won’t regret it.
Guest author Blake Waddill is “leveraging” his education in Chemistry at Props Blog dot Com; resources and reviews site with addicted gamer twists. When he isn’t blogging, he’s hanging out with his wife and 3 year old step son or cheering for the Mavs and the Patriots.
