.::HTML Primer
To create your site you will need a basic knowledge of HTML. HTML or HyperText Markup Language is the standard language for composing pages that can be displayed in a standard web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. HTML is not a very difficult language to learn. We'll give you some of the basics to get you started.

.::What is HTML
A HTML file is a plain text file that contains tags that are used to format text, create tables, forms and embed multimedia elements such as pictures, music, video etc. If you press the right mouse button on this page and click on View Source and you will be able to see what this page is composed of. Most HTML elements contain a beginning and an ending tag to tell the browser to apply the tags properties to that particular area. eg. the code for
' how to put your business on the internet'
would look like..
how to put your business on the internet

.::Basic HTML Document Structure
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>**insert page title here**</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
**document content goes here**
</BODY>
</HTML>

This is the basic layout of which every web page is constructed of. The document has 2 main parts. The Head & Body. The head contains all of the information regarding the document. This includes information such as the title, meta tag, style sheets etc. The body holds the content of the document such as text, images, forms and tables.

.::The Body Tag
The Body tag is one of the more important tags in HTML. It contains all the document information such as margin width, link colors, background image etc. Some examples are shown below.

<BODY MARGINWIDTH="4" BGCOLOR="#000099">
This example defines the margin width of the page which is set to 4 pixels. The background color is set to dark grey. The code #000099 is a hexidecimal color code made up of six letters or numbers. Two sets of numbers are used to set the amount of each primary color. <BODY TEXT="#ffffff" LINK="#333333" VLINK="#666666" ALINK="#999999">
There are 3 different kinds of links to define: a link (unclicked), a visited link (clicked) and an active link (typically seen when using frames). The TEXT= tag is used to define the default color for all text. In this case white.

.::Creating Tables
Tables are one of the most versatile elements in HTML. Tables can be used as placeholders to aid your layout. An example table is shown below.

a	b	c
d	e
f
g	h	i

The code for the table is shown here. As you can see the table is divided up into rows then cells.

<TABLE WIDTH="200">
<TR>
 <TD BGCOLOR="red">a</TD>
 <TD BGCOLOR="blue">b</TD>
 <TD BGCOLOR="green">c</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
 <TD BGCOLOR="blue">d</TD>
 <TD BGCOLOR="green">e</TD>
 <TD BGCOLOR="red">f</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
 <TD BGCOLOR="green">g</TD>
 <TD BGCOLOR="red">h</TD>
 <TD BGCOLOR="blue">i</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

.::Text Formatting
Type Formatting elements can be used to change the font face, size, weight color and whatever else. examples below. Additional Tags such as bold, italic, underline can be used in conjunction with the tag.

The cat sat on the mat

The cat sat on the mat


The cat sat on the mat

The cat sat on the mat


The cat sat on the mat

The cat sat on the mat


.::Links
Links allow visitors to your web site to jump from one site or page to another. Links a one of the most common HTML tags used on the Internet. Heres how.
<A HREF="links.html">Go to the Links Page</A> would look like:
Go to the Links Page

To link to another website simply change the tag.
<A HREF="http://www.server101.com">Server101</A>
Server101

.::Further Reading
For more information about HTML and webpages the Web Design Group have a comprehesive library of documents regarding HTML and CSS. Click Here otherwise take a look at Further Reading.