What You Should Know Now — and What's Next

What You Should Know Now

• How a page is structured — doctype, html, head, body — and how the browser turns markup into a DOM tree
• Text, headings, links, images, lists, tables, and media elements
• Semantic layout with landmarks, and when div and span are the right choice
• Forms, input types, built-in validation, and what gets submitted
• Accessibility: alt text, accessible names, ARIA roles and states, landmarks, keyboard support
• Meta tags, Open Graph, structured data, and technical SEO
• Responsive images, iframes, details, dialog, and popovers
• Templates, custom elements, shadow DOM, and declarative shadow DOM
• Loading performance, resource hints, and link/embed security, Content Security Policy, and sanitizing user content
• Validating and testing your markup

What Should You Learn Next?

• CSS — CSS controls how your HTML looks: layout, color, typography, and responsive design. It's the natural next step.
• JavaScript — JavaScript makes pages interactive and is how you build web components and applications.
• SVG — SVG is the markup language for scalable vector graphics, icons, and charts inside your pages.
• A back-end language — PHP, Python, or JavaScript on Node.js generate HTML on the server and handle the forms you build.

Build Something

Build a real website for yourself, a club, or a local business — even a small one. Write the HTML by hand, validate it, test it with the keyboard and a screen reader, and publish it on a free static host. Then read the source of sites you admire with View Source and your browser's developer tools.