Learn How to Make Websites
Never written a line of code? Perfect — this page is for you. Join Penelope the cat for four hands-on tutorials that take you from your very first HTML tag to a styled, interactive website — all built by hand, all yours.
Free, right in your browser, no experience needed. You'll build one real page the whole way through — and publish it to the actual web.
Start the HTML tutorial (requires a free account)
Already know HTML? Head to your dashboard and start building.
Your learning path
The tutorials build on each other, so they're best taken in order. The first one ends with you publishing your page to the real web; after that, the tutorials are pure practice space. (That's a suggestion, not a rule: jump around freely and come back anytime.) Take them at your own pace, and publish early and often — half-finished pages are a proud tradition of the web.
1 Start with HTML
HTML is the language every web page is written in. It's not really "programming" — it's more like labeling your writing so a browser knows what's a heading, what's a paragraph, and what's a link.
The HTML Tutorial
Build a real web page step by step with Penelope the cat: headings, links, pictures, lists, and a splash of color. You type, the page updates live, and by the end you've published an actual website.
2 Level up your HTML
Now for the tags that give personal sites their charm: poetry with real line breaks, quotes, symbols like ♥, secret notes in your source code, and boxes that click open to reveal hidden things.
The More HTML Tutorial
Eight more lessons of expressive, creative HTML, each with its own little practice page — ending with the trick that introduces CSS.
3 Make it beautiful with CSS
CSS is how your page gets its look: colors, fonts, boxes, and layout. If HTML is the house, CSS is the paint, the posters, and the beaded curtain. This is the makeover episode.
The CSS Tutorial
Hex colors, fonts with personality, a centered column, links that light up when the mouse visits, and a gradient sky to finish. Dressing up pages is the best part.
4 Bring it to life with JavaScript
JavaScript makes pages do things. It's real programming — and here's a secret: you don't need it to make a wonderful website. But if you're curious what you can do with it, dive in.
The JavaScript Tutorial
Teach your page tricks: greet visitors with a random hello, switch between day and night skies at the press of a button, and keep count of how many times the cat gets petted.
5 Build your own site
From here the assignments end and the fun begins. Rewrite the poem. Add a page for something you love. Hide more secrets. Everything on your site from now on is there because you wanted it there.
Your Dashboard
Your site's workshop: edit your pages anytime, upload images, and add new pages — a file called about.html instantly becomes a new page you can link to. Tinker until it feels like yours.
After the path
The best web design school ever invented is the web itself. When you finish the tutorials, browse the sites people have built on Neocities — and when one amazes you, right-click and hit View Page Source. Every page on the internet is made of the same HTML, CSS, and JavaScript you now write, and browsers will happily show you how anything was made.