Learn how to write HTML - Introduction

Introduction

In the beginning...

You want to build a webpage, but have no idea how to do it. You can use a website building system like Wordpress, Wix, Squaredspace or Shopify, but if you follow this basic tutorial, you will find yourself with a webpage that you have created without the help of a pagebuilder. You can move on to using these website systems, but it does help to know how to create your own code so you can jump into some templates and make changes.

Although this tutorial is very basic, it is a starting point. Once you learn the principal of building a webpage, you only need to know the commands ( ) to manipulate the content on the page so it displays how you want. If there's any step that you find obvious and don't think it's necessary to include, I'm not trying to insult your intelligence - there are some people who are unfamiliar with certain functions on the computer, I'm just trying to cover all angles for everyone.

Tools you will need to create a webpage:

  • Notepad (or similar text editor)
  • Most importantly, remember to bookmark this page so you can come back to it!


To start with, there is no need to sign up for a website hosting account. That can come later if you want to actually create a website. The steps we are going to follow are:

  • Step through the basics of a webpage.
  • Create the page stored ON YOUR COMPUTER
  • When you're happy to show it to the world, I will then show you how to 'upload' or publish your page on the net

Hang on a minute...ON MY COMPUTER?? I thought I was building a webpage!

Strange as it may seem, the easiest way to build a page in html is by doing it and saving it on your computer, in your document folder. When the page is finished, you then transfer it to a server somewhere, which you are going to sign up for. There is no cost for the webspace, as the company will put either an ad on your webpage, at the top or the bottom...or they will have a pop-up banner which comes up every time someone opens your page. As they get paid from advertisers for this, the more people who have a webpage on their server the better!

You will do all of the html coding in notepad. Notepad has a .txt extension, so it won't be a webpage. However, as soon as you change that .txt extension to a .html extension, you have a live html page! When you open that html page on your computer (just double click on it like any other file) it will open up like a webpage...but if you notice the address line in the top of the browser, it will have something like:

'C:\My Documents\yourpage.html'

This is because that is where your page is stored, on your computer.Once you 'upload' (transfer) this page to a webserver somewhere, the address of your page will then be something like:

'https://www.mywebhost.net/yourpage.html'

as this is where your page will be stored.

Ok...clear as mud? Let's get started, hopefully it will all makes some sense as you go along!

Let's get moving with lesson 1!