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Coming to Terms

HTML- or HyperText Markup Language, the universal language of the Web in which all websites are written. Official versions of HTML are defined by the W3 Consortium, which can be found at http://www.w3.org.

HTTP- HyperText Transfer Protocol. This is the protocol that is used to carry traffic between a Web browser's computer and the website.
 
Starting Point
If you're seriously thinking of building your own webpage, the first thing you need is webspace. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) should provide you with this kind of service as part of your subscription, if not, well, there are a lot of avenues to look at. Certainly you want free webspace, presumably since you're only getting started. The downside of free webspace is most of the time, a long, confusing URL (or web address) is assigned to you. For a perfect example, look at this page's URL (hahaha). It's one of those annoying things you have to live with. Geocities and Tripod are by far the best providers to run to for free webspace.They offer you nice services and features that are hard to resist. They also give you this "sense of community" that makes you want to stay. Both have File Transfer Protocol (FTP) clients built into their sites to upload your web files to their respective servers. I'll be explaining that later on. Check out Angelfire and Hypermart as well or click here for a review.
Software
Your choice of software is crucial depending on what you know and what you don't know. Some HTML editors/programs are merely text editors (much like a word processor with no graphic capability), but won't really matter if you have the knack for HTML. Examples of these are Allaire Homesite, WebEdit, Hotdog Pro and Note Tab Pro, or better yet, Notepad, which should fall under your Accesories menu (in Startup) (can also be found in your Windows 95 folder). What your webpage will look like will be known only through a browser, such as Netscape and Internet Explorer. Other programs that are What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) would be ideal for totally novice websters. Dreamweaver, Frontpage 98, and surprisingly, Word 97 fit into that description. Use a search engine or two to know more about these programs. Check out Davecentral.com too.
Design
Look around, browse through websites that attract you to give you ideas on how you want your webpage to appear. Basically, you'd start off figuring out what background colors, fonts, images you'd want to incorporate into your page. The easiest way out of this is to think of a motif. If your site is about basketball, then your background image should have a basketball look and feel to it. If you have a favorite team, then use a color scheme parallel to their uniform. Like say, the Chicago Bulls, whose uniform uses mostly dark red, black and white. To make things easier for you, take a look at the original graphic templates available only from Earthbound by clicking here.
Content
Design is what attracts people to your page, but content is what makes them stay. Do you want to inform? help out? entertain? sell? Whatever your motives are, make some drafts on what exactly you want to show on your webpage. Also make sure that the design that you had in mind matches your content. You don't want to use a basketball motif for a golf homepage now would you? A basketball site usually contains a favorite team or player, or a whole league, their stats and bios etc. Whip up some interesting stuff, and be accurate in your data.
Sample Page
Earthbound has provided you a sample homepage you can work on. Entitled "Bart's Homepage", it was created by a 22-year-old guy named Bartholomew Colgate. If you don't have an HTML editor right now, use Notepad. On top of your browser, save Bart's homepage as index.html into a new folder called "Bart's folder". Then, right-click on the "thinking man statue" image and save it as thinkbuild.jpg in the same folder. Click here to enter Mr. Colgate's page. Having done that, click here to view and print the instruction manuals.