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Build Your First Multi-Page Website with HTML: A Beginner’s Guide

Build a working HTML-only website by creating one file per page and connecting them with a consistent navigation menu.

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You can build a working multi-page website with HTML alone: create a separate .html file for each page, then connect the files with ordinary links. A shared navigation menu makes it easy to move around; no CSS or JavaScript is required for this basic structure.

Plan the pages before writing HTML

Choose a small subject and list the pages a visitor needs. For example, a personal site might have Home, Projects, Pictures, and Social pages—the four-page set used in MDN’s “Creating links” exercise.

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Give each page a distinct purpose. Home can introduce the site, Projects can describe your work, Pictures can show images, and Social can collect relevant profiles. You do not need to build every page at once, but deciding the filenames and destinations up front helps prevent broken links.

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Create one HTML document per page

Save each page as its own file in a shared project folder. A simple layout might look like this:

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my-site/
  index.html
  projects.html
  pictures.html
  social.html

Each file is a separate document. The pages become a site because hyperlinks connect those documents, not because they share one file.

In each document, use a descriptive browser-tab title and one clear main heading. The central content should reflect that particular page. HTML can provide the structure and navigation without styling; the result may look plain, but visitors can still follow its links.

Connect pages with a navigation menu

An anchor element with an href creates a hyperlink. The WHATWG HTML Living Standard’s Links section specifies that an anchor’s href value must be a valid URL, potentially surrounded by spaces. For files in the same folder, use the filename as a relative path, such as href="projects.html".

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Place a consistent menu on each page so visitors can reach the rest of the site. Use descriptive link text: “Projects” tells a visitor more than “Click here.” A major site menu is a good use of <nav>; MDN describes it as a section intended for major blocks of navigation links, not every link on a page. See MDN’s <nav>: The Navigation Section element reference.

Example: index.html

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Home | My Site</title>
</head>
<body>
  <header>
    <h1>My Site</h1>
    <nav aria-label="Main navigation">
      <ul>
        <li><a href="index.html">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="projects.html">Projects</a></li>
        <li><a href="pictures.html">Pictures</a></li>
        <li><a href="social.html">Social</a></li>
      </ul>
    </nav>
  </header>
  <main>
    <h2>Welcome</h2>
    <p>A short introduction to the site.</p>
  </main>
  <footer>
    <p>My Site</p>
  </footer>
</body>
</html>

Copy the header and navigation to the other files, then change each page’s <title>, main heading, and central content. MDN’s multipage-site exercise uses a consistent menu as a way to link pages together. Whether to keep a link to the current page in that menu is a design choice; MDN’s example removes it, but HTML does not require that approach.

Keep navigation separate from page content

Use <header> for introductory or site-wide material, <nav> for the major navigation block, <main> for the page’s central content, and <footer> for closing material when those landmarks suit the page. MDN notes that <main> should contain content unique to the document, rather than repeated branding or navigation; consult the MDN <main> reference.

The menu can repeat across pages while the content inside <main> changes. This distinction helps visitors orient themselves and keeps shared navigation from being mistaken for the page’s unique subject matter.

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Use the right link for the destination

Move to another page

Use an href containing the target file’s relative path. If index.html and projects.html sit in the same folder, a link from the first to the second is <a href="projects.html">Projects</a>. The path must match the actual filename and folder location.

Jump to a section on the current page

Give the destination element an id, then link to that identifier with a fragment. For example, <h2 id="gallery">Gallery</h2> can be reached with <a href="#gallery">Skip to the gallery</a>. This moves within the same document; it does not open a separate page. MDN explains this pattern in its guide to creating links.

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Check that every route works

  1. Save all the HTML files in the folder structure your links expect.

  2. Open the home page in a browser, then activate each navigation link.

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  3. On every destination, check that the page title, main heading, and unique content match the page you intended to open.

  4. Try any in-page links and confirm they land at the element with the matching id.

  5. If a link fails, compare its href character by character with the real filename and relative folder path.

This check is a practical part of making the site: the HTML examples establish how the links are written, but they are not a report of independently tested files.

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Quick Recap

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