How to build a basic HTML/CSS based website - from an *Absolute* Beginner

Hello Everyone,

So, I am about 150 challenges in and basically entrenched into the structures/languages of basic HTML/HTML5, Basic CSS, and Applied Visual Design. I am totally loving it and I’m learning very fast. The only reality I know of at the moment is the freeCodeCamp challenge set up and I have no conception of what programming looks like outside of this very specific (and simple) framework.

I’m also going to school right now (studying foreign languages), and I would like to make a very simple HTML/CSS based website for one of my projects in one of my classes.

I Googled “how to set up a website from scratch”, (ha!) and my hope is that future-me will look back on that and find it hilarious because I had no conception of what that meant, how vague it was, etc.

So anyway, I found many incredibly unhelpful things, scams, poorly done Youtube videos…I was really taken aback by how inaccessible and difficult it was to find some sort of set up where I can implement the code I was practicing here and start the building blocks of a web page.

So, I’m hoping someone can give me some sort of simple road map, or at least tell me that its not realistic at this point in my development:

I wish to start making a web page with the following elements:

-HTML/HTML5/CSS Based Language
-Header/Footer
-4-5 different pages that I can click on with a hover function
-Importing basic text, maybe a video

So, I know for anyone with even a month of experience as a programmer, I must sound like a complete noob, but can someone tell me what I need to do in order to accomplish this? What do I even write code on? Do I need to pay for a website in order to develop something simple like this?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this and help if possible.

-Dylan

I would advise using codepen to start. Otherwise you would have to purchase a domain name, hosting etc which, as a beginner, is not really necessary. You could also look at wordpress as a place to create although i would personally stay away from it as it can be glitchy if you really want to hard code your own website.

Thank you! I’ll give it a try.