Table of contents for Learn how to create a website series

1. Learn how to create a website using a Template
2. Understanding the Basic Structure of a Website
3. Choosing a template for your website
4. Editing the CSS Template to Make a Website

Getting ready to edit your template to make a website

In this part of our series you will start editing your template to make your website. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you every step of the way so you don’t get lost.

What do you need?

1. The BigSpaceLove template found on Free-CSS-Templates
2. A browser to open your website. (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox…)
3. A text editor to edit your website. Preferably one that supports syntax highlighting. Programmer’s Notepad is free and is what I’ll be using.

Start editing the template

Open up index.html using your text editor. If you remember the basic structure of a website we taught you can notice that it is the same way the html file is structured.

• The header contains “Website Title” and “Subheader, website description H2″ in this case
• The body is separated into a left section containing the content the and a right section containing the menu.
• The footer contains information about the person who created the template.

You will notice these sections are denoted with the following tag in the HTML document:

The <div> </div> tag

You can think of the div tag as a section within your HTML document. They will usually be named after the sections described above.

Making and viewing changes to your website

To make a change, simply save the index.html file at any time. Then open it using any browser. Once the page is open, you can refresh it thereafter whenever you make a change to the html file.

Changing the title of your website

Let’s change the title of our website. Currently it says Big Space. Look for the following code in the html file.

<title>Big Space</title>

It should be enclosed within the section. This section is used for placing information about the website such as meta tags, links to the css stylesheet, and the title of the site.

Let’s change the title to whatever you want. I’ll name it the following:

<title>Let's talk Binary!</title>

Now view the changes you have made using the steps I provided earlier. See what happened? The title of our website changed, this isn’t visible on the page itself but in your browser.

Editing the Header Section

Now let’s go ahead and change the “Website Title”. Look for the following.

<h1><a href="#">Website Title</a></h1>
<h2>Subheader, website description H2</h2>

I’ll be changing it to the following.

<h1><a href="index.html">Let's Talk Binary!</a></h1>
<h2>Eliminating the barrier between code and people</h2>

If you noticed, I change “#” to “index.html” above. “Let’s Talk Binary!” is encapsulated with the <a> </a> tag making it a link. Whenever you click on it, it will take you to the index.html page which is the current page your on.
It is also encapsulated with the <h1> </h1> tags, making it a header.

The <a> <h1> tag

The <a> seen is used to create a link to another document with the source being “index.html” in our case.

The <h1> tag defines headings. The values range from 1 to 6. 1 being the largest.

Now save and view changes. Isn’t this easier than you thought?

Go to the next page to learn how to edit the menu

Now, go on to the next page to learn how to edit the menu.

Table of contents for Learn how to create a website series

1. Learn how to create a website using a Template
2. Understanding the Basic Structure of a Website
3. Choosing a template for your website
4. Editing the CSS Template to Make a Website

Getting started on your first website

Ever wanted to create a website but had no idea where to get started? No worries, I’ll guide you through the simple process and it will require no prior experience. Is it really that easy? After you complete my series of tutorials, it sure will be. We’ll be using the template BigSpaceLove found on Free-CSS-Templates to create a simple personal website similar to my personal website.

You don’t need to know anything. I’ll even make sure you understand the fundamentals so you can continue learning more on your own afterwards. So no, you don’t need to know how to design a web page, or even how to code one.

This series will teach you how to make a similar website pictured above

Why would I need a website anyways?

First of all, a website might serve a great variety of purposes such as the following:

• You may post your resume, CV, or portfolio online to attract potential employers
• Might want to share a hobby
• Promote a product you are selling or endorsing
• Start a community
• Simply to learn!

In reality, the possibilities are endless. It’s actually quite a good skill to have and it can pay off. While I was in highschool I managed to create websites and get paid pretty darn well for it since people think its more complicated than it looks.

If you are looking to simply learn, this is a great place to start. This will be a great hands on experience as you will be seeing progress rather quickly. It will also enable you to understand the fundamentals of the creation of a website.

Next tutorial shortly coming up

Stay tuned and before you know it, you’ll have your very own personal website. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post them below. I’ll try to tailor this tutorial for beginners so if there is anything you want me to cover please leave a comment or suggestion.