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The first thing you need to understand is, HTML coding is not difficult, it is not some secret magic potion that only Merlin the Wizard can use. There are less then a dozen HTML tags used in the basic web page and you can actually make a web site with only four HTML tags. All the rest are used to add different effects to your web site. A few words about HTML tags. HTML tags are codes you use (or commands) to tell your browser what to do. The code is housed in between the less than < and the greater than > brackets. Such as the bold tag <b> which tells the browser to display the text in bold print. Most HTML tags require a "closing tag" (or a command to tell the browser when to stop doing something.) Like this, <b>Bold Text</b>. Notice the forward slash / before the b in the closing tag. This tells your browser it is a closing tag. Some HTML codes are case sensitive, so it would be wise to write all your coding in lower case letters. (Also CSS coding which requires lower case letters will be replacing HTML codes. Don't get excited, it will be years before that happens. But it will happen. And getting into the habit of writing your HTML codes in lower case letters now will make the transition from HTML to CSS much easier.) To make a web site you will need a few things. First off you will need a computer and an ISP (Internet Service Provider.) Since you're reading this I'm going to assume you already have these. Next you will need a "web hosting service" such as Boomspeed.com. You may want to check with your ISP, since many IPS's (such as AOL, Earthlink, MSN) provide their members with free web hosting. Keep in mind that although they offer you free web hosting, there is no tech. support and some are not easy to use. So you are better off with a paid hosting service. There are several on the net that cost less than a lunch at Burger King. Next you will need a "text editor" such as "Notepad" (Notepad is a Windows program and is on most computers). With the above tools and a basic knowledge of HTML you will be ready to make your first web site. A few words about text editors. Many HTML documents have been written using nothing but Notepad. I myself spent my first couple of weeks doing my web site with only the help of Notepad. The only problem here is you cannot see your work until you have uploaded it to your web host. If you see a mistake or want to make a change, you will have to go through the whole process again. After a couple of weeks of this I found what is called "practice boards". There are some web sites on the net that have practice boards for you to use for free. A practice board is a text area where you can write your HTML code and click on a button to see your work as you are doing it prior to uploading. You still have to copy and paste your work into Notepad to save it to your computer prior to uploading. But this saves a lot of time. If you check out our HTML tools area (on our HTML tutorial page. Or click HERE) we have included some links to several practice boards, as well as our own HTML text editor. We also show you how to download a copy of our HTML editor to your hard drive so you can use it off line if you want to.
Making a personal web site is a labor of time and love.
"THE BASIC HTML TAGS"
<html>
For an explanation of what the tags are and what they do, and a few extras that can be included in a basic web site scroll down the page.
HERE IS WHAT ALL THIS MEANS <html> <head>
The HTML tag tells the browsers that this is an HTML document. The content that goes in between the opening and closing HEAD tags is for information and instructions for the browsers, and is not displayed on the net. <title>Your web page title here</title> Make sure your title tag phrase contains at least three words that directly describes your web page's content. <meta name="keyword" content="key words, keywords">
The meta tags are not a requirement, and most non-commercial web sites (personal web sites) do not use them. <meta name="description" content="brief and to the point description of the web page."> Keep the description meta tag to 250 characters or less. Make sure that it clearly describes the page, and that it uses some of the keywords (but not the misspellings) listed in the keyword meta tag. If you don't include a description meta tag, some search engines may use the first sentence or two of your text, including any javascript coding (even if you comment out the coding). <meta name="robots" content="all"> Use a comma-separated list of one or more of the content="attribute". Their meanings are:
In fact, most search engines do not recognize all meta tags. Some will use your title tag for a description of the page, and yet others will use the description meta tag, others will use both the description tag, title tag and the keyword tag to rate the "relevancy" of your page. Some search engines will also read the top two sentences or the bottom two sentences to help judge "relevancy." Do not overload your page with keywords. This is called spamdexing and will actually more often than not penalize your page with a lower relevancy ranking. If you have any CSS style tags, java, javascript, or jscript functions that are "called", which means that they do not write to the web page, include them after the meta tags and before the closing head tag.
</head>
You can define the colors of your background, text, and links in the body tag. Some examples of these would be:
Place your web content here. The content of your web site, that is what will be displayed on the web for all the world to see goes in between the opening and closing BODY tags. </body> </html> Close out the body and html document.
Note: --
Don't forget to use ALT tags with any images that have informational content in them.
We have a couple of lists of HTML tags as well as some color charts you can use to spruce up your website. You can see the lists and charts on our HTML Tutorial Page.
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