How to Encode Web Pages

Encoding your own website takes some pre-planning but it is an ultimately rewarding and achievable task. Before you start, plan out the architecture and content of the site--what pages you will have, what order they'll go in and what text, images and videos will go on which pages.



You will use HTML, which stands for hypertext markup language. HTML is a set of instructions for a web browser that says, "Get this content, put it here and make it look like this."



Like any other language, HTML has a syntax and a vocabulary. The syntax is content related to the instruction.

Instructions

Encoding Web Pages

1

Open your web development software (see the Resources section for free and paid software options). Start a new document by selecting "File" and then "New." Save the document as index.html--this will be your home page.

2

Open an tag at the very top and add a closing tag at the very end. You will code the web page in between these tags, which lets the web browser know you are coding in HTML.

3

Open and close a tag (use to close it). Information in the head will not display on the web page itself when viewed in a browser; instead it includes information about the web page.

4

Within the opening and closing head tags, include whichever of these items make sense for your particular web page:

5

Open a tag below the closing tag, and close the just above the closing tag. The body is where your content will go.

Coding Content Types

6

Open a paragraph tag

and start typing text. You'll close one paragraph by using a closing

tag, and start another by using another

tag. Spacing between the paragraphs will appear automatically.

Text formatting you might use includes:

bold text

italic text

underlined text

this text would be bright red; use the hexadecimal value of a color to change the font color

This text will be linked to the website eHow.com

7

Code an image by using a standalone HTML tag with various attributes. For example:




This example calls in a picture titled "where-your-image-lives.jpg" without a border. The image will display at 200 pixels wide and 300 pixels tall, no matter what the actual size of the image is on the page. The image will be aligned to the right and there will be four pixels of space above and below it, as well as six pixels of space on either side, to allow text to wrap around it.

You can use the same link tag as in Section 2, Step 1 to make a photo link out:




8

Add a video from YouTube or another video sharing site by using the embed code provided by the site.