-- Getting Started --
Here is a page with instructions specifically for building a Freepages site.
The Home page of any website is usually named "index.html" or "index.htm". There are some progams that try and name it default.html, however, it would be a good idea to rename it to index.html.
All HTML statements (Tags) will be surrounded by the < and > signs.
At the very top of the HTML code, before anything else, will be something similar to:
< !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
This tells the web browser what rules it should use when it reads the page. The example is what this website uses.
Next is <HTML> This tells the browser that what ever follows, until it reads </HTML>. (Notice the slash mark.) should be interpreted as HTML. Almost every HTML "tag" should be followed by "/tag".
Next on the page is <HEAD> which stands for heading.
In this section is: <TITLE>The page name </TITLE> Some thought should be given as to the names of your pages, because that's what will show as the title when a search engine picks up your page. A name like "uncle don" might mean something to you, however, someone looking at your page from a search will have no idea what that means.
Then come some lines that look like this:
<meta name="Keywords" content="graphics, links, building websites, (keywords of what your website contains)">
<meta name="Description" content="help building and maintaining a small website (what the site is about)">
<meta name="Author" content="your name goes here">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"> "Don't mess with this."
The better job you do with the meta tags, the more likely it is that you will rate high in the searches. It can take some time for this to happen.
If you are using an external stylesheet, there will be a line next that looks like this:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheetname.css" type="text/css" media="screen">For information on using a stylesheet, got to the link on stylesheets.
Then this section ends with </HEAD>
Next on the page is <BODY> This starts what is visible on the screen.
I like to put remarks in my HTML code so later there's no question about what does what.
A remark looks like this:
<!-- this is the start of the BODY code -->
Notice that you have the usual < followed by an exclaimation point, and 2 dashes. Then, at the end, your remark is followed by 2 more dashes and the regular >.
It can contain almost anything as the browser totally ignores it (unless it has Javascript in it), but that's beyond the scope of this site.
Then, at the very end of your page, things are made all neat and tidy with:
</BODY></HTML>