Basic Html Web Design

A Web Hosting Article Contributed by Frances Rhea

Web Design for Beginners

If you have never done web design before, learning the HTML language can be very intimidating. There are many things that beginning HTML programs assume you know and understand about computers and the Internet.

Web Design Basic Tools

I assume you have a computer, Windows or Macintosh, and Internet access. You also need an understanding of how to click on links to open web pages.

If you do not understand the terms "click", "link" or "Web page" take a beginners course about the Internet.

Creating a Web Page

When you get on the Internet, you use a Web browser to access the pages. A Web page is a document, like a Word document or music file, that the Web browser shows you.

The biggest difference between opening a document with Microsoft Word and a Web page on the Internet is that the Web page is not stored on your computer. The Word document is. Your Web browser uses the Internet to access other computers where the Web pages are stored.

Web pages are written in HTML. This is a language (like computer programming) that Web browsers use to understand how to display the particular Web page you are viewing.

Creating Your Web Design

Web pages are not just text documents. You can design a Web page in Word but you cannot write HTML coding in Word. If your design is created in Word, you will get unexpected results in your web design because of all of the extra codes inserted by the Word program.

To create an HTML document, you will need a text based editor. Notepad will work but there are lots of programs available as freeware or shareware that is specifically created for web design.

If you have a Macintosh, you can use SimpleText.

Writing the Html Web Design Code

Writing the HTML code consists of typing tags and text into a text editor. Many tags require both beginning and ending tags.

A basic HTML document looks like this:

Hello!

This is my first Web design.

Note the closing tags all have a '/' before the main code is repeated and that all tags are enclosed in '< >'. This is mandatory or your browser will not recognize the document.

Also notice the bgcolor, alink, link, and vlink in the body tag. These designate the background and link colors of the page.

Saving Your Web Design

Saving a file as HTML is fairly easy. Simply save the file to a folder you created for your site. Instead of the .txt extension, use .html. This tells your computer that this is a file that is to be opened in a browser.

Completing Your Web Design

Learning all of the tags and how they are used is very complicated but worth the effort. Knowing what they are and how to use them can help you to have a great design or one that visitors run away from.