Nowadays, it is quite simple to learn how to make a website because there are so many online tutorials available along with many free tools that guide you through the steps in making a personal site. Thanks to the various blogging platforms, creating a new site can be as easy as creating an email account. But if you think you have that artistic ability and want to dive in a bit deeper in the world of designing websites, there are several things that you should know so you can properly turn your artistic ideas into a working webpage.
HTML
Every webpage you see on your browser has some HTML code. Understanding the basics of HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language can enable you to make some attractive websites especially if you add images and other graphics. HTML5 is a good language to aim for if you want to design modern websites because it focuses more on interactive applications and multimedia. Many mobile applications happen to be powered by HTML5. Therefore, you can be a serious developer as smartphones and tablets continue to rise in popularity.
CSS
CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a language that works with HTML. Many web designers use CSS for creating templates since you can create a single CSS file that defines the font style and background color for all of the pages in the website. It is also used for molding the layout of a website. Knowledge of HTML and CSS alone is enough to make some very lightweight but interactive websites that look very attractive. Anyone that likes to make minimalistic websites should still find a lot of flexibility with HTML and CSS alone.
JavaScript
JavaScript is an entirely different language to learn and knowing how to code in JavaScript opens up plenty of dynamic possibilities. Many of the fancy effects and transitions that you see on popular websites are powered by JavaScript. Alongside HTML5, JavaScript powers many of the web applications that you use today from web-based email clients to social networking sites. This is why it is important to enable JavaScript in your browsers at all costs since so many sites depend on it.
PHP
PHP is different than HTML, CSS and JavaScript because PHP is a server-side scripting language. This means that other users will not be able to see the source code if they do not have access to your server. PHP is a popular choice for making dynamic sites including blogging platforms and forum sites. These types of sites have registration systems that involve databases so you may have to dive into those languages like SQL as well. You should only study the PHP language if you plan on designing a website on a hosting provider that supports PHP.