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 "1st Page 2000." This powerful
editor is great for newbies and experienced webmasters alike, as
it can be used in four different modes -- Easy, Expert, Hardcore
and Normal. You can select which mode you'd like to use depending
on your level of experience. Best of all, it's completely free. http://www.evrsoft.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.
How would you like to have a tool that could make your web site
load faster? What if it could also allow you to make changes across
you entire site with just a few keystrokes? And while we're at it,
let's make it the standard for new browsers, so that your site will
still work properly in the future.
Well, that tool is here now and it's called Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS). CSS is the part of the code that defines the appearance of
a web site.
HTML 4 is the current version of the markup language that is used
to control the structure of a web page. It was created by the World
Wide Web Consortium several years ago, and one of the main goals
of this version was to separate the structure of a web page from
its presentation. This means that HTML is used only to create the
overall structure of a web page, which includes things like headlines
and paragraphs. This leaves CSS to describe what different size
headlines should look like, and how paragraphs will appear on the
screen.
The problem with many sites today is that they were constructed
before HTML 4 had been released, or by designers who hadn't yet
made the transition. These sites are more difficult to debug or
update because the HTML was used i many creative way to do define
the presentation as well as the structure, and it wasn't designed
to do that. They also contain a lot more code, since each headline,
paragraph and other text had to have its font, font size and color
defined. This extra code adds to the time it takes to download a
web page into someone's browser.
There are numerous text tutorials
such as Writing
HTML and HTML
codeTutorial online that can teach the basics in complete
step-by-step form and some with static text and images for examples.
Statistics show that only one of every four Web Sites use Meta tags.
However using these tags can give your site an advantage over other
sites that do not. Meta tags enable most visitors to initially find
your site from the search engines.
What are Meta Tags?
These are HTML tags that provide information that describes the
content of the web pages that the visitor will be viewing. Web Site
owners use this resource to control their positioning and descriptions
in the search engines. Most search engines incorporate reading meta
tags as part of their indexing formula.
Where to Place Meta Tags
They should go in between the <head>
and </head> tags in your html
page.
Types of Meta Tags
The Doctype tag The DTD (Document Type Definition) tag precedes
the opening <HTML> tag. It is generally the first element
to be used on any page. It distinguishes the version of HTML in
use from other versions of HTML and tells the browser what tags
to expect when laying out the page.
<!doctype html public "-//wc3//dtd
html 4.0 transitional//en">
HTML How To Articles & Tutorial
