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Internet
Marketing Tools - HTML Basics - Part Six
By Shelley Lowery
If you're doing
business on the Internet, learning some
basic web design skills is an
absolute must. Not only
will you have the ability to create your own web
pages,
but you'll also save yourself a great deal of
money.
Selecting an HTML Editor
Although there are many
HTML editors available on the
Internet, the best editor I've found is "Coffee
Cup."
This powerful editor is great for newbies and experienced
webmasters alike. You can download a fully functional
shareware version
here:
http://www.coffeecup.com
Web pages are created with
special codes known as HTML
(Hypertext Markup Language). These codes, also
referred to
as tags, are enclosed by the lesser than (<) and greater
than (>) brackets and may be written in capital or lower
case
letters.
The opening bracket is followed by an element, which is a
browser command, and ends with the closing
bracket.
Example:
<font>
An element may also be followed
by attributes, which are
words describing the properties of the element, and
further instruct the browser.
Example:
<font
size="2">
Attributes are only contained in the opening tags to the
right of the element and are separated by a space and
followed by an
equal (=) sign. The value follows the
equal sign and is enclosed in
quotes.
Basic Document Structure
Below, is a very basic
HTML document structure. It
contains the opening HTML tag, the TITLE tag
enclosed
between the opening and closing HEAD tags, the opening
and
closing BODY tags and the closing HTML tag.
All of your text, graphics and
any additional HTML codes
will be placed between the <BODY> and
</BODY> tags.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Web
Page
Title</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Each
HTML tag above contains an opening tag and a
closing tag. The opening tag is
written with the command
enclosed with brackets.
Example:
<HTML>
The closing tag contains a forward slash followed by
the
command enclosed with brackets.
Example:
</HTML>
The opening tag is telling the browser to begin the
specified action and the closing tag is telling the
browser to end the
action.
The proper way to write HTML is to place your closing
tags in
sequence with your opening
tags.
Example:
<B><I>Example of the proper sequence of
writing HTML</I></B>
Notice that the closing tags are in
sequence with the
opening tags.
When you have several opening tags,
the closing tags
will begin with the last opening tag and end with the
first. Are you totally confused now? Here's some more
examples.
This is an example of a properly written
code:
<B><I>Example</I></B>
This is an example
of an improperly written
code:
<B><I>Example</B></I>
Creating a
Basic Document
Begin writing your HTML by creating your document's
basic layout -- beginning with <HTML> and ending
with
</HTML>:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META
NAME="Description" CONTENT="Description of your
web page">
<META
NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Keywords that best
describe your web page separated
with a comma.">
<TITLE>Your Page
Title</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
This area will contain
everything that will be visible
through a web browser such as text and
graphics.
</BODY>
</HTML>
<HTML> - Begins your
HTML document
<HEAD> - Contains information about the page such as,
the TITLE, META tags for proper Search Engine indexing,
STYLE tags,
which determine the page layout and
JavaScript coding for special
effects.
<TITLE> - The TITLE of your page. This will be visible in
the title bar of your visitors' browser.
Note: Make sure you include
your most relevant keyword
phrase within your "title" for Search Engine
indexing.
A keyword phrase is two or more words that best
describe your
website. For example, if your website
focuses on "grooming dogs" then your
best keyword
phrase will be "dog grooming."
</TITLE> - Closes
the <TITLE> tag.
</HEAD> - Closes the <HEAD>
tag.
<BODY> - This is where you will begin writing your
document.
</BODY> - Closes the <BODY>
tag.
</HTML> - Closes the <HTML> tag.
Basic Text
Elements
<B> - Bold
Text
<B>Example</B>
<I> -
Italic
<I>Example</I>
<U> -
Underline
<U>Example</U>
Color Codes
If you
would like to specify a certain text or background
color, you can do so by
using color codes.
RGB color codes are represented as hexadecimal values.
The
RGB color codes contain three sets of numbers representing
the
amount of Red, Green and Blue contained in a color.
These codes must be used
within your HTML to specify your
selected colors.
Now, to put the
above statement in English...if you'd like
to display your text in a certain
color, you must include
the hexadecimal color code within your font tag.
Each color
has its own color code.
Here are a few of the basic color
codes:
Black - #000000
White - #FFFFFF
Red - #FF0000
Green -
#00C000
Blue - #0000FF
Yellow - #FFFF00
Example:
<font
color="#FF0000">Example</FONT>
You can find a 216 safe color
chart here:
http://www.web-source.net/216_color_chart.htm
Creating
Links
In order to navigate a web page, you must create
links.
Links are created with an anchor, an href attribute and a
URL
(Uniform Resource Locator). URL's provide the browser
with the location of
the link, the name of the file and
the method in which to access the
file.
Example:
<A
HREF="http://www.domain.com/">Link</A>
When you begin writing
your HTML code, all of your codes
will be placed between your <BODY>
and </BODY> tags, as
this is the only part of your web page that will
be viewed
through a web browser.
You can find an HTML code chart
here:
http://www.web-source.net/html_codes_chart.htm
This
chart will provide you with all of the basic HTML
codes, descriptions and
examples to assist you in creating
your web page.
Although this
article provides you with a very basic
overview of HTML, with the help of 1st
Page 2000 and
the HTML code chart mentioned above, you can easily
begin
learning how to create your own web pages.
Copyright © Shelley
Lowery 2002.
About the Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author
of Ebook Starter - A complete
ebook design kit. Subscribe to Etips, for a
wealth of quality
information to assist you in Web Design, Internet
Marketing
& Ecommerce. All new subscribers receive a free copy of
the highly acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing
Strategies."
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=bl1
You have permission to
publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web
site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.
Part Five
Part Seven
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