I’ll be adding more to this shortly, but for now here’s a few of my own favourite pointers.

• Get to know your HTML! Try and edit your HTML documents in a text editor at first, and then progress on to a package that doesn’t add any annoying tags you didn’t ask for, for example, HomeSite by Allaire.
• I quite dislike the use of <TABLE> borders and hollow <HR> tags. A few years back I read an interesting article on the overuse of the horizontal rule tag which suggested a few alternatives, for example, <CENTER><P><FONT SIZE=3 COLOR=RED>. . . . . . . .<FONT></P></CENTER>.
• Keep the writing small if possible. <FONT SIZE=5> and <H1> tags can look quite ugly if not properly used. Newspaper articles aren’t printed in small fonts just to save money, it looks better.
• If you’ve moved your page and want to redirect any visitors from your old page without editing the httpd.conf file, you can either use JavaScript:

  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

  function redirect()
  {
  location = “http://www.newurl.ie/”;
  }

  </SCRIPT>

  <SCRIPT>

  redirect(0);

  </SCRIPT>

  or the META tag:

  <META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="0; URL=http://www.newurl.ie/">

  in your original page.

• Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) in your pages - they’re cool! Using one referenced style sheet, you can change the look of your entire site by editing a single file.