Blogging Tips - HTML code basics

Recently I was helping another blogger with HTML code, and she said that I should do a Blogging Basics type post about the topic.  Okay . . . here it is.

First off, what is HTML code?

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.  This is basically the language that is used to create websites, web pages and elements on the pages.  There are lots of different tags and elements that when they are combined make websites do what they do like making text BOLD, or different COLORS, or even a clickable link to another portion of the website.

So that is what the code IS . . . now how do I use it as a basic blogger?

First off, I am NOT going to try and pretend I know a LOT about code.  That is why this post is called BASICS.  I want to show YOU that you DON'T have to know a LOT about code to have a blog and USE HTML codes.

All of my examples are going to be for Blogger because, well, that is what I use.  :)

In your blog, start a new blog post

Look at the upper left corner and you will see that you are in the Compose View

You can also see from the image above that everything looks pretty much like typing an email.  You see line returns, if items were in BOLD you would see that too.

Now click on the HTML button to the right of the Compose button . . .

Now you are going to see the computer code language of the blog.  I have circled some of the coding in this next image, like the code that is telling the blog to make text bold or change it's color.

So that covers some basics of what code IS . . . now, why is that important to a new blogger or how will you even USE IT.  Why can't you just type up all of your blog post in the Compose view and be done with it?

Well . . . you can.  But what if you get involved in an event, like a blog hop, and they want you to insert some HTML code into your post.  How do you do that?  It is really not as hard or scary as it may sound.  We will answer that question with next week's tip.