Learn how to write HTML - Introduction

Introduction

You want to build a webpage, but have no idea how to do it. You can use a website building system like Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace 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 (Ctrl+D on Windows, Cmd+D on a Mac) 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
  
  

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 are plenty of places that will host your page for free - GitHub Pages and Netlify are two solid options, genuinely free, no catch. Some free hosts do stick a small ad on your page to cover their costs, so it's worth reading the fine print before you sign up if that bothers you - but either way, you don't need to spend a cent to get your first page online.

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'

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

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