A Web Page Of Your Own

by Denise Østed Sound of Music: Illustration by Juliet Breese

Having a web site opens up new possibilities and opportunities for networking and sharing information. While the internet is becoming increasingly commercial, there is still a huge potential for feminists and other activists to hook up with other people who are committed to social change.

When I first started my Women’s Web Links and Aboriginal Web Links sites at the beginning of 1995, I did so because I was frustrated by how difficult it was for me to find information I wanted and needed. Now I get mail every day from people recommending new sites for my pages, or who need information, or who have information they feel I might need or want to know.

Writing your own web site isn’t as intimidating or technical as some computer geeks and internet companies would have you believe. If you want a fancy site with lots of bells and whistles, then yes, it takes more time and knowledge. But if all you want to do is put your information up on the world wide web so it can be accessed by any of the millions of people who use the internet, then the process is quite simple.

When I first wrote my own web site (which is, as you can see for yourself if you visit it, still very basic as far as technique and design are concerned), I had never heard of HTML editors – the software which helps you create your own web site. So I did it all by hand. I find now that was far more useful, because now I know what all the codes mean, and I have a better understanding of how my web pages are put together.

In this piece, I will explain the simplest way to make a web page, without an HTML editor. Using this article, you should be able to put information on a web site, be it personal, professional, political, or whatever else you want to make available to others.

HTML stands for Hyper-Text Markup Language. HTML is what you use to write a web page. It is NOT a computer programming language. Rather, it is a set of little codes (called tags) that you put in the text you want to display as a web page. This is very much like the old Word Perfect codes, where you tell the software to bold a word before you type the word, and then tell it to stop bolding when you reach the end of the word. A tag is always in angle brackets, like this: .

The bare bones of a basic web page look like this:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> 
Here you can put the title of your web page.
</TITLE> 
</HEAD>
<BODY>

This is the body of your web page. Here you will put all the text that you want others to read on the world wide web.

</BODY>
</HTML>

Almost every tag has an opening part and a closing part. The opening tag looks like this: <TAG> and the closing tag is identical except for a slash at the beginning, like this: </TAG>. There are no spaces between the letters in the tag and the angle brackets. Tags which both open and close are called container tags because they contain the information within them, and act only upon the text between them.

The < HTML> </HTML> tag opens and closes the entire page. This indicates that the page is an HTML document, and tells the browser (Netscape, Mosaic, Lynx, etc.) how to read the page.

The <HEAD> </HEAD> tag includes information about the page itself. The basic information required in the head is the title of the page. This doesn’t show on the page itself; rather, it shows in the title bar of your browser.

The <BODY> </BODY> tag encloses all the information you want to display on your web page. This is where you will have your text, and your graphics if you choose to include them. The body tag is also where you can specify a background colour or pattern.

The body of your web page is the most important part. This is the purpose of your page, and its content. There are many elements which should be included in the body of your web page: a title/header, an explanation of why the information is being shared, and who put out that information (you or your organization). You should also include a way for people to contact you (either by snail mail or e-mail), and a line at the bottom saying when the page was last updated (so people know how timely the information is).

Title/Header

None of the bolding, centering, italicizing, or fonts that you use in your word processor will work in HTML. To make a title/header stand out, you must use the header tag, which includes a number to indicate how large the title should be. Headers range from 1 to 7, with 1 being the largest size. A large header tag with a title looks like this: <H1>This is Your Title </H1>. To make the title smaller, use 2 or 3 or 4 instead of 1. I have never found any headers smaller than 4 to be useful, but they might suit your purposes, so just try experimenting with it on your own.

Paragraphs

Each paragraph in the body of the page, even if it is only a few words long, must be contained within paragraph tags. At the beginning of your paragraph, you need <P>, and at the end of your paragraph (after the final period), you need to close it with </P>.

Links

It’s always good to have links to other pages relevant to your page. People can then use your page as a jumping off point to access more information, and they can also see the ways in which you relate your information to other people’s work. Also, a page with some links is more interesting. You may also have more than one page on your own site; if you have a lot of information to share, you will have to break it up into smaller chunks. A page that is too big takes a longer time to load, and people often resent the time that takes. The tag for links looks a bit different from other tags. A typical link tag will look like this:
<A HREF="http://www.euronet.nl/~fullmoon/women.html">Women’s Web Links</A>

Notice that there is a space between the A and the HREF. Notice also that is the only space in the whole tag. Any valid web site address can go into this tag. The opening part of the tag has the address (which does not show on the page when someone views it). The text between the opening and closing tags gives the title of the page you’re linking to, and the closing tag finishes it off. On a web page , the only part that will show is the title “Women’s Web Links” – this will typically be underlined, and the letters will be a different colour from the rest of the text on the page (usually blue, but not always).

Contact Information

You should include your e-mail address on the page if you have one. You can also make a special link so that people can e-mail you directly from your web page. This is similar to a regular link. A mailto tag looks like this:

< A HREF="mailto:fullmoon@euronet.nl"> Denise Osted </A>

or like this:
<A HREF="mailto:fullmoon@euronet.nl">fullmoon@euronet.nl</A>

You must replace my e-mail address in the link with your own e-mail address. ( I strongly recommend the second form. You can include your name with your e-mail address, but please include your e-mail address in the part that is visible to someone visiting your page (only the part between the tags is visible, not the parts within the angle brackets). Some browsers don’t support mailto links, and if your e-mail address is not on the page, those people will have no way to contact you.

Centre, Bold, Italicize, Underline

It is possible to centre titles and even paragraphs by adding a piece in the opening tag, like this:

<H1 ALIGN=CENTER>This Title Will Be Centred</H1>

<P ALIGN=CENTER> Each line in this paragraph will be centred.</P>

And for bolding, centering, and italicizing:
<B>This sentence is bolded.</B>
<I>This sentence will be in italics.</I>
<U>This sentence is underlined.</U>

What To Do Next

Once you have written your web page, you MUST save it as text-only. If you save it as a Microsoft Word or WordPerfect document, your page will have some extra characters at the beginning and at the end. So be sure to save it as text-only.

Now you have to put your web pages on your Internet Server Provider’s computer. This process varies from ISP to ISP, but most of them will have a web page for their members explaining how to do this, as well as some technical support people you can phone or e-mail for help.

Once your web page is on your ISP’s computer, it is available to everyone on the internet. Your ISP will tell you what your web page’s address is. Write that down, and then go visit a bunch of search engines (Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, etc.) and register your page. This allows people to find your page when they are looking for information on a particular topic. Registering with search engines is fairly simple, as most of them have a link called "Register Here".

There are a plethora of web sites devoted to information on building web sites. A quick search with almost any search engine will point you to many places where you can get more information about HTML tags, and how to use them.

Another good way to figure out how things work is to look at the code on other people’s web sites. To do that, you can choose an option called View Source, or View Document Source while you are looking at a page. This helped me a lot when I was trying to figure things out. It is sometimes easier to understand how something works when you can see an example of it.

Some HTML editors can also make this process simpler. Again, a search on the internet will yield some sites where you can download HTML editors for a trial period. I have tried a couple, but I am so used to coding by hand now that I still find that easiest. And for a basic page with text and links, it may not be necessary to download, set up, and figure out how to use an editor.

There are some good books out about writing web sites. The one I used when I started was Laura Lemay’s Teach Yourself HTML. She also has a great web site, at
www.lne.com/lemay/ which has some helpful information and links.

There are many more codes and tags which allow you to create lists, make tables, include graphics, and include background colours and patterns. When you’ve made your first simple page, you will already know enough to start experimenting with these other tags. And the beauty of the Internet is that it is self-perpetuating; a few searches will bring you many, many sites with information about where to go from here. Good luck!

Denise Østed
fullmoon@euronet.nl

TOP
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 8
Part 9
Women’space Home

SITE MAP

ABOUT US

LAST ISSUE

PAST ISSUES

LETTERS

SUBSCRIBE

COPYRIGHT