Creating a Web Site Using HTML

Congratulations! You've decided to make that big leap and build a web site! The only problem is you're confused, you don't know where to start. The answer? HTML.

What is HTML, you may be asking. HTML is short for a computer language that goes by the full name of Hyper-Text Mark-Up Language. Your computer reads the HTML that comprises pages like this one. The visual your computer screen gives you is the direct result of how it reads the HTML.

Okay, so if we want a site that displays nicely on the monitors of visitors all across the world then we need to know how to write a web page in HTML. The first order of business is to learn the componants that make up a basic page. I've entered the code for such a page in the text area below. Take a look at the code. When you're done looking it over, I'll go through and discuss all of the componants individually.

What the Elements Mean

The <> Brackets : All HTML elements are enclosed within the brackets to let the computer reading the code know that these are HTML commands.

The HTML Tag : Located at the beginning of all HTML documents, this tag tells the computer that the page it is reading is written in the HTML language.

The Head Tag : The Head tag is located immediately following the HTML tag itself. Everything written within the two head tags (more on this later) is information not displayed on the screen when a user looks at the page. This information is presented for the computer, search engines, and other robots that may access the web site.

The Title Tag : Located between the two head tags, the Title tag lets the computer know that the information presented next is the title of the accessed web site. Generally the title will be displayed in the upper corner of the visitor's browser. Because it is located in the HEAD area of the site the title is not displayed within the page itself.

The Title : Immediately afer the TITLE tag is the title of the page (in this case the title is "My Web Site"). Notice that this information is written without being enclosed in brackets. You may, of course, name your site whatever you wish.

The End Title Tag : Immediately after you type the title you enter the "end" or "close" Title tag which is in brackets (<>) and reads /Title. The backslash before the word is important as this is what tells the computer that the title is completed and the remaining information is not a part of the title.

The End Head Tag : Once you've added all of the information you'd like in your heading you need to tell the computers which will be reading your site that the head area of the page is complete. This is done in the same fashion as the end title tag, with a /head in brackets.

The Body Tag : The Body tag contains after it all of the information that will be presented onscreen to your site visitors. Its purpose is to trigger the reading computer to display everything from that point on in the browsers of your visitors' computers.

The Content : You'll notice the example web site has very little content, just some unformatted text. The text was entered at this point.

The End Body Tag : After you've added all of your content, you'll need to tell the computers that will be reading your site that there is no more content to be displayed. This is done with the /Body (in brackets!) tag. Nothing below this tag will be displayed on your visitors' computers.

The End HTML Tag : Finally, you need to tell the computers of your visitors that your HTML is complete. This is done with the /HTML tag.