PROMOTING YOUR CATTERY
How to Construct a Web Site

by Karen Lawrence
Reprinted with permission, Cat Fanciers' Almanac, January 1997

Adding backgrounds and icons for pizazz

We also wondered just how many of you have tried your hand at creating graphics with your graphics editor or paint shop program only to come to the same frustrating conclusion we have - we can't draw a straight line, even with the aid of a computer!

Some of us just have no artistic talent at all, but really want to be able to use neat graphics on our websites. That's why those people who are not artisitically challenged have been kind enough to share their creations with us, and why there are an abundance of web sites that have oodles of graphics available for you to use just for the taking, although it is always a nice gesture to include a link somewhere on your site to the site where you got your icons. Here's just a sample of where to find good graphics for use on your websites:

Randy's Icon Bazaar
http://www.iconbazaar.com
- has had over half a million visitors, so he must have something there of value, right? You can chose bullets, dots, arrows, banners, bars, backgrounds to your heart's content.

Bellsnwhistles.com
http://www.bellsnwhistles.com/
Tons of graphics

Ann-S-Thesia's GIFshop
http://ann-s-thesia.com/webgraphics.html
very creative graphics

Blackat's Free Web Graphics
http://members.tripod.com/~blackat9/theme.htm
theme sets (matching backgrounds, buttons, bars, etc.)

The Banner Generator
http://www.coder.com/creations/banner
- if you are really no good at doing your own images, but still want a spiffy banner on your website - this is a MUST site to visit. You can create your own banner that you will be able to download. You choose your banner size and color, the font you want, add your own text, and decide which image format you want the banner to be in and this site will create it for you to download.

Adding Icons and Backgrounds

You know how to add an image to your web site, so icons shoudl not be a problem. Backgrounds are equally as easy, but the HMTL must be included as part of the <BODY> tag at the beginning of each page. The source code for this particular page is:

<BODY BACKGROUND="bkgnd.gif" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#CE0884" LINK="#00A8CC" VLINK="#55229E" ALINK="#F07EA9">

BACKGROUND is the background image
BGCOLOR is used when you don't have a background image, but want a specific color of background
TEXT is the color of the text
LINK is the color of the links
VLINK is the color of visited links
ALINK is the color that a link flashes when it is chosen

You just have to be extremely careful that, once a background is added to your page, the text is still readable! This is where it pays to have more than one browser on your computer at home, so that you can check to see what you page looks like on different browsers.

And if you want to try your hand at some really fun stuff, look at example of what can be done using the simple <pre></pre>, but attaining a wonderful effect.


  1. Deciding on the structure of your web site
  2. The URL, and explanation of basic HTML tags
  3. HTML tags to format your text & link to other pages
  4. How to include your photo images on your web site.
  5. Adding email links, and what to do with a list
  6. Putting your pedigrees online
  7. Adding backgrounds and icons for pizazz
  8. Putting your web site online
  9. Publicizing your URL

Page maintained by Karen Lawrence, klawrenc@computan.on.ca. Copyright Karen Lawrence©. Cat sketches courtesy of Cindi Farnsworth©. Created: 1/29/97 Updated: February 20 2004