This blog post is not sponsored by Elementor.
Yes, you read that title right. I learned the basic skills required for front-end website development. Now, I use a website builder to do it for me.
Now when I say website builder, I don’t mean that I tell an AI powered website platform the design style that I want and have it generated out of thin air in seconds. I still take a very hands-on approach to my web development process. But, using a website builder saves me time, common human errors and meticulous lines of code.
My preferred website building tool is Elementor for WordPress. Once the plugin is installed, you’re free to utilise the different elements (no pun intended, or is it?), provided by the plugin, to design and build your website.
There are free and paid versions of this plugin. But, to be honest, the free version manages to provide you with so many options, which are enough for simple, static websites. The tool is user friendly, allows you to save your changes as drafts and preview what your designs will look like as you’re working.
It’s also made to be responsive and allows you to visualise what your website will look like in desktop, tablet and mobile formats. This is especially useful for helping you perfect those fine details, so that your users can have a smooth experience no matter which device they access your website from.
I say all of this not to convert you into an Elementor user (but feel free to check it out if you are a WordPress user or web designer who’s searching for a no-code website builder), but actually to highlight the importance of learning the skills required for front-end website development in the first place. HTML and CSS are the building blocks for creating websites, and even though I don’t write all of my website code, I find myself applying the knowledge I’ve acquired thus far quite often. This often makes the building process much smoother.
So how did I even learn HTML and CSS?
I wrote more about that experience in a previous post, so feel free to check it out for the full story here. But in summary, I decided that I needed a website of my own. By that point, I had seen many different web building platforms advertise their services as “quick and easy”, allowing users to drag and drop elements, thus bringing their website to life in minutes. But with factors such as margins, padding and positioning, I had no idea what I was actually doing. It slowed down my process instead of making it faster. While I could have used templates or an AI powered web design platform, I really wanted to be able to implement my own vision from scratch.
So I signed up for an online course that would teach me the basics of HTML and CSS. Naturally, my final project entailed creating a website from scratch using code. To any experienced developer out there, this might seem like a walk in the park, but to me, it was a meticulous process which involved writing and re-writing lines of code then testing it with each change.
Not to mention, that once I uploaded it to my web hosting platform, any changes I wanted to make later involved me needing to return to those files and become a detective, seeking out specific sections of code like I was searching for a needle in a haystack.
Now with Elementor, when it comes to the front-end development of my website, this process is mostly eliminated. However, I still call on the knowledge I gained from learning basic HTML and CSS years ago.
For that reason I implore you to build your foundational knowledge of front-end web development before diving in to using website builders.
The design tools available today are incredible, allowing us to do a lot more in less time, but I still champion learning at least the basics when you can. I’m continuing to learn to this day, by consulting resources and refreshing my memory as I work on projects, which proves to be very useful when I need to get something just right.
So yes, while I use a website builder despite learning how to code, I’d say that my knowledge of code allows me to be less intimidated by my website builder and create more freely. If you were looking for a sign to begin your front-end website development journey, consider this it.
Happy learning and I’ll catch you in the next one!
Until then,
Naomi
