By Saph
If you have an open petpage, but don't know how to set up your page, then you should keep reading. I'd read it even if you knew what you were doing, since I may have written something that you never thought about. Besides, it's fun to read... personally, reading is good. Anyways...
Planning
What kind of page do you want? An "About Me" page? Guild FAQ page? An imformative guide type page? Well, you should plan out what you want to put on your page no matter what. What do you want to call your page? I would personally stick with a short catchy name. Planning is very important in the page-creating process... if you don't plan well, then your page could become a dud.
Oh, and by the way, I have not listed all of the things you should consider in your planning... but I have covered the most important. I could write all day about what you should think about. Most of the planning for a page depends on what you want it to do, how you want it to function, etc.
Getting a Color Scheme/Background/Tables
When you think of the type of your page, what color do you think of? If you're doing a page for your guild, try to choose a color that kind of matches the guild layout. If you're doing a page about yourself, then what's your favorite color? Try to stay away from bright colors that make peoples' eyes hurt... you don't want to blind somebody!
Do you want a solid color, or a picture/print background? If you want a picture background, then try to pick one that isn't to complex or eyecatching. You don't want to distract your viewers with a hyptonic swirl! If you want to use a color background, then choose one easy on the eyes that matches your color scheme.
Okay... tables. Most text appears in tables, and a plain white background is very simple and clean. I HATE the "kiddy" borders that come with the table, but you can find other codes for simple lines that work. I like to use a plain black line border for my tables.
Fonts and Size
Okay... the fonts. I like the simple "Verdana", and I find that fonts with tails (such as "Times New Roman") are very annoying...
Never use picture-fonts (Like "BabyCruffy", "JokeWood", "Joker", etc) because they are extremly hard to read. Yeah, you never want somebody to be saying "What does that say???"!
For the font sizes, you should choose the smallest size you can use without making the font to hard to read. Try to keep the page as short as possible (but only do this by keeping font sizes small).
DID YOU KNOW? You can create a "mood" for your page by using certain fonts!
Image Location Patterns
Yes, the location of pictures in a site can make a site look better or worse. Bet you didn't know that! Most people don't like sites that have moving pictures EVERYWHERE, so try to keep them seperated about the same difference. If you like, you can switch your pictures form one side of the page to the other, and maybe put one in the center.
I find that keeping a same location pattern with different pictures makes a page look very nice and clean, not cluttered.
Music
I seriously would not use music (I only have music on my userlookup!), since sometimes it takes a long time to load. Also, some music that you may like other people hate, etc. It may distract your viewers from the page's content, which isn't very good in my book!
If you do want music, then try to choose a calm sound that paints a picture that matches your theme/feeling for your page.