The base of designing web sites is still knowing how to write HTML code. There is an endless market for web site design because there is no limit to the amount of web sites that can exist online. If you want to learn how to design web sites, you just need some HTML help to get you going in the right direction. 

There is plenty of HTML help available in the form of basic tips, general guidelines, detailed instructions and CD tutorials. Video Professor provides HTML help through CD and online tutorials. Here are some basic HTML help guidelines from Computerhope.com.

The number one secret in HTML is when you are browsing the Internet and you see something that you like and you want to know how they made the page, view the person’s source code, usually by going up to view the source. This allows you to get the general idea on what the person is doing and implementing on your page, without having to remember it. However, take into consideration that the owner of the page may copyright some code; do not simply cut and paste someone’s code without authorization from the company and or web master.

Your main page should, in one way or another, link to all sub pages. Or links to sub pages, which then may link to sub pages.

When making your web page, always create links and image names in lower case, this way you don’t have to worry about Unix not being able to open the page because of case sensitivity.

When designing your web page, place everything in one directory; pictures, sounds, HTML files, etc, this way you don’t have to worry about putting the particular directory, just the name of the picture or the sound. However, if you plan on making hundreds of different pages with sounds or images, we would recommend that you put them into sub categories. Think about the size of the page before utilizing this technique.

To get your pages higher on search engines, use some of your keywords in your title; a lot of search engines go off the title of your web page. 

When creating links to your sub pages or images, do not put your URL, this will help prevent a lot of work in the future if you have to change your URL. However, this can cause the page to be more easily taken and placed on another server.

When creating your web page, make your page with one topic and extend only upon that one topic. When people are looking up information on the web, usually they are looking for one thing such as music, computers, etc. If you page has information about golf, dogs, books, and some about computers, some people may become easily distracted or may find that your page must be about something else and leave.

More thorough HTML help is available from Video Professor and many other sources. This is a rather complex craft to master so make sure you don’t cut any corners when it comes to HTML help.