What is HTML, CSS and Javascript?

Right, quick post today...on a topic I feel will get your web development basics clear. Before diving into SEO techniques it is important to know what is HTML, CSS and Javascript? I have gone through countless checklists while trying to understand search engine optimization and every checklist says you should know the very minimal of HTML, how to code a basic website and so on. I'm not going to focus on the development bit, but what I do want to explain is how HTML, CSS and Javascript work together in web pages.

The three main technologies used to create web pages (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) each do different jobs.

• HTML is used only for structuring content.
• Cascading Style Sheets is used for applying all visual styles.
• JavaScript is used for (almost) all interactive functionality, and should always be referenced in separate files, never written into HTML

How do these three technologies work together?

The web page you see in your browser may be a combination of structure, style and interactivity.

These jobs are undertaken by three different technologies, HTML, Javascript, and CSS which your browser knows how to interpret

HTML - marks the content up into different structural types, like paragraphs, blocks, lists, images, tables, forms, comments etc

CSS - tells the browser how each type of element should be displayed, which may vary for different media (like screen, print or handheld device)

JavaScript- tells the browser how to change the web page in response to events that happen (like clicking on something, or changing the value in a form input)

The 2 most important things to learn about web page production are:

1. Use the correct HTML tags that mean what they say. (When people talk about "semantic" HTML, this is what they mean!)

2. Keep your HTML, CSS and JavaScript code separate.(This simply means: Don’t put JavaScript or CSS in your HTML. Put them in separate files, called in by your HTML pages)

If you're interested to learn how to code your website or blog, I'd suggest the Basic HTML tutorial from w3schools, look no further.