How to Learn HTML: Top Learning Resources

HTML is the backbone of all things Internet-related. Every website you see on your web browser runs HTML. No matter how complex are the frameworks used to create a web application, it always has to compile down to HTML to render visuals on the screen. HTML is among the basics of web development, and if you intend to pursue a career in front end applications, you need to know HTML inside out.

In this guide, we will take a look at some of the top resources that you can use to learn HTML well enough to build a career in web front end development!

What is HTML?

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is the basis for all webpages, and it consists of a number of tags that help you structure your content on the webpage. Tags like title, h1, or paragraph help in arranging the content shown on the page in a user-friendly manner.

HTML is the barebones technology over which a website is built. When you are building a React application, you write JavaScript code. Ultimately, this JavaScript code is injected inside a script tag in an HTML page that is run in your browser. The same goes for almost all other JavaScript-based frameworks. This clearly explains how important HTML is for a web application.

Why Should You Learn HTML?

Having discussed how HTML makes web programming possible, it is evident that HTML is an important skill to pick up as an aspiring web application developer. HTML helps you uncover solutions to issues that arise out of foundational problems associated with your code.

Say you are building a JavaScript-based web app. You will have a script tag inserting your source code in the final website. If there was another script tag right after this with some conflicting code, you might not achieve the results that you are expecting from your code. Your JavaScript source code will not be at fault, since there is some other factor affecting your final code delivery. Knowing how tags and priority work in HTML will help you quickly find and fix this issue. This is very common in styling web pages; a strong understanding of HTML will help you waste less time.

PayScale lists the average annual salary for people with HTML skills at $69,621. This shows that investing your time and energy into HTML will eventually pay off. However, with added skills like CSS and JavaScript, this figure will almost certainly go up. Also, the marketability of this skill is huge; there are many companies and clients who have a number of projects based on this technology.

The Best Books for Learning HTML

Here are some of the top books that will help you learn HTML well. They also serve as a good source of reference:

HTML 101: The Essential Beginner’s Guide to Learning HTML Coding

HTML 101 bridges the gap between learning materials simple enough for absolute beginners and advanced resources that help you master a skill. The book follows a visual approach to explaining the various moving parts of HTML but maintains its straightforward tone. The book also covers CSS, the standard styling solution for the web. All in all, this book is a great deal for anybody wanting to learn the barebones of web development from scratch.

HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites

HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites takes a rather different approach to HTML and CSS than most other resources out there. The authors have tried their best to introduce HTML and CSS to a wide audience, making the topics as accessible as possible. This book will fit your needs regardless of whether you are a student taking baby steps into the world of vanilla web development, or an experienced professional looking to sharpen your command over the web.

Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS

Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS is an easy-to-follow guide to building modern, intelligent web applications using HTML and CSS. This book covers both technologies in detail, tackling also other interesting topics like SVGs, accessible HTML, and more to help you create the next top production application using HTML. The language of the book is easy to understand no matter your level of expertise.

The Best Courses for Learning HTML

Complete Intro to Web Development on Frontend Masters

Complete Intro to Web Development is a course offered by one of the principal engineers at Microsoft, which says a lot about the quality of the content offered. This course covers web development in general and teaches HTML along the way. This means that you will learn much more than just plain HTML.

Learn HTML by CodeAcademy

Learn HTML by CodeAcademy is a free course on HTML. Learn HTML is a short and to-the-point course to help you get going with HTML in less than nine hours. Its compact nature makes it a perfect starter for anybody unsure of whether or not to begin with web development.

The course is divided into four chapters that gradually increase in difficulty. The final chapter on Semantic HTML paves the way for modern, responsive web application development.

Introduction to HTML5 on Coursera

Introduction to HTML5 is a 13-hour-long online course offered by the University of Michigan on Coursera. This is one of the most popular courses on the platform on HTML at the moment. The course focuses on explaining how the web works with the help of HTML and related technologies.

The course assumes you have absolutely no prior experience with HTML. It also devotes an entire week to understanding how to make your webpages accessible as well as to what happens under the hood when a webpage is rendered on a browser tab.

The Best Tutorials for Learning HTML

HTML For Beginners The Easy Way

HTML.com is among the best resources on web development that emphasize a proper understanding of HTML. HTML.com has a number of articles on various HTML-related topics; the homepage itself serves as a great starter for somebody who is absolutely new to the concept of HTML.

W3Schools HTML Reference

Among the oldest content providers on HTML and other web-related technologies, W3Schools is a reliable and user-friendly place to learn HTML. W3Schools offers very descriptive content on old and new HTML concepts. It serves as a good beginner-friendly place to start your HTML journey, as well as a great source of reference once you have built a website or two using HTML.

HTML Tutorial by TutorialsPoint

TutorialsPoint offers a tutorial on HTML, which is meant for absolute beginners as well as those with some experience. This resource is essentially a glossary of articles that address each concept of the markup language in detail. However, the page is very well structured, so you’ll feel like you are on a curated journey through all the important HTML-related concepts.

Conclusion

Now that you have access to a list of resources to study the foundation of web development, it is important to choose the best one for you. Obviously, not all resources will suit you; sometimes a bad match can make learning much more difficult than it ought to be.

It is totally natural to prefer books over tutorials, or vice-versa. However, with technologies like HTML that require hands-on practice along with study, a guided tutorial serves the purpose better in most cases.