I am going to touch some new ground today and ground that is distinctly uneven and something that will probably scare the c**p out of you!

HTML is one of those weird things that people either get or don’t get… The general comments I get from people I help with HTML is that I am some kind of genius, a man with a magic wand. You probably think I am some techie nerd sat behind the computer screen, developing a beautiful thoracic curve to rival the hunchback of notre dame.

Actually I thinking coding in general is something you either understand or is a bit like Swahili to you.

However there is some many good reasons why you should know some HTML as a fitness professional. Not knowing will probably leave you behind in getting your site found by google, getting screwed by some dodgy web developer, and missing out on some easy business development.

You could outsource EVERYTHING to do with HTML, however there are some things that are simply not worth outsourcing, or even possible to outsource.

So here is my little list of why you MUST learn some HTML.

1. Getting screwed by some lazy ass developer(LAD)… I was the only time I flipped big time about a month ago when a good friend had a site “built”, but couldn’t figure out why google was not finding the site… Upon investigation, by looking at the code I saw what the LAD had done. They had created a website by taking a screen print of the word document my friend had used to demo what they wanted to appear, then just created the site just from the images.

This meant the site had no content (in the eyes of google) and would never had been found.

Avoid the LAD’s by understanding some of the nasty things they get up to.

2. When commenting in a forum, it is good practice to follow up you comments with a “hyperlink”(one of this links embedded in to the text) back to your website. To do this requires a little knowledge of HTML. Thankfully many communities and forums will now automatically insert the links with a little tool, but some do require a little bit of coding.

Each time you do this you create a back link to your site, helping to elevate your site up the google rankings.

3. Editing the meta tags on your site: The META tags are the “hidden” text in your site for making sure your site is properly indexed on Google. So for example the title, description and keyword tags are essential for search engine optimisation. Knowing a little HTML will allow you to make these simple changes without needed to “trust” a LAD with the SEO aspects of your site.

I have heard people be charged in excess of 1000 USD for SEO stuff on their site… it is a 5 minute job that ANYONE can do.

4. Making minor textual changes to your site without needing a LAD. If you don’t need to change the layout of your site, but you do want to change the text content, then if you understand a little HTML you can do this without the need to hire a developer.

Most textual changes take minutes, not days or weeks, an don’t require the services of a LAD

5. Inserting video and audio in to your site: understanding a little HTML will mean you can add the clever little script text in to a web page or BLOG posting to include a YouTube video or an audio hosted by a company such as Audio Generator.

Once again simple little changes that with a tiny amount of HTML knowledge are really easy.

Over the next few weeks I am going to do some really simple HTML tutorials, so let me know EXACTLY what things you would like to know about HTML so I can cover the most popular things.