The Guide to Blogging

It's not what you say, it's how you say it

Ben — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:44:50 -0500

A lot of blogs say the same things. But somehow they get away with it. People read and perhaps leave a comment, not even realising the same points have been made by countless other bloggers. Why does this happen?

You need to write things that people can relate to.

Some of the best stuff on the Internet is pretty simple really. Many of us already know what the writer is saying to us. In some cases we may even be able to second-guess their words before they say them.

While this isn't a blog entry, a very good example is the YouTube video, Facebook - too much information?

I watched this and found it both accurate and entertaining. If you've never used Facebook before, the video isn't for you. But there are plenty of other things on the Internet that you will be able to relate to.

If you break them down, most blog entries have been said before.

So what is it that makes us so intrigued by yet another list of top tips?

Style. As a writer you need to find your niche both in terms of subject matter and style. The way you write is a big part of whether people keep coming back. Early on in your blog's life, don't be afraid to experiment with different types of post to see what goes down well and what goes down like a lead balloon.
Insight. A different perspective on a subject that's been done to death can give it a new lease of life. Including a little of yourself in your posts, instead of writing generic content with no personality, will make the difference between your blog and the next.
Enthusiasm. There's nothing worse than reading an article that is just plain boring. Did you ever have a teacher who droned on and on and nobody really understood a word? I had one or two of those. You don't have to go overboard with a "happy clappy" tone, but at least make it sound as though you want to be writing!

I'm sure there are many, many more things to add to this list. What's important is that you have to make people want to read what you write - and perhaps one of the best ways is to re-read what you write. Do you enjoy reading your own writing?

Write what you know.

No matter how much buzz a particular topic might be creating on the Internet, there's very little point posting about a topic you know nothing about - particularly if it's irrelevant to your target audience.

You shouldn't announce every bit of news that interests you. Ask yourself if it's appropriate to post it on your blog.

Bring everything full circle.

I think it's reasonable to expect all blogs to go off-topic from time to time. If you do cover diverse topics, make sure you discuss how it relates to your niche. This is a great way to attract new readers without alienating your existing readers.

If someone covers a story first, you can still publish a better post.

Sometimes it may feel like there's a race to be the first to announce something. I don't think this matters unless you're so late to the party that the subject is no longer relevant.

Don't worry if someone else writes about what you wanted to say before you do. The best thing to do is postpone your post (interesting phrase, that...) so it doesn't look like you're copying other sites, then make sure you write the best post you possibly can.

It doesn't matter that someone else said it first. Say it better.

Content comes first, promotion second

Ben — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:38:23 -0500

Today's blog entry is pretty simple really - you should start putting content on your site before you promote it.

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to get this wrong. Let's have a look at why this might be, and what you should avoid.

People get ahead of themselves.

Some people have this big idea of how they're going to do something better than anyone else and they're going to get really famous. Maybe they'll get rich too.

Problem is, they set up the site and fall over themselves to promote it anywhere and everywhere... before there's anything on the site!

Don't make this mistake. Take some time to build your site properly and ask a couple of trusted friends for feedback, but don't tell everyone else about your site until it's been running for a short while. How long you should wait really depends on how often you're publishing new content.

One good page is not enough.

If you have published an excellent blog entry that attracts loads of readers to your site, you'll want to have other good content for them to read as well.

If someone arrives at a site and loves the first page they read, but they can't find anything else, they probably won't subscribe. Who knows when the next update will be?

Take your time.

Rushing out your content is not a good way to ensure they are of a high quality. It doesn't guarantee that they'll be bad, but rushing things can lead to mistakes.

Write your content with care. Proof-read it. Edit it if needed, but try to get it right first time.

Write short posts.

Don't feel like you have to pad out your content if it's not long enough. Some of the best posts are very short. Then again, a long post may be necessary in some cases.

If you don't need to write a lot - then don't! Just make your content worth reading regardless of its length.

A dozen posts should be a good start.

Aim to write 10-12 posts before you publicise your site too widely. This gives you a chance to find your feet with your choice of subject matter, and it gives your potential readers more to go over when they first visit. If it doesn't work out, you don't end up closing the site just as the first people arrive.

Stream of consciousness blogging

Ben — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:37:17 -0500

This post looks at stream of consciousness blogging. What is it?

A river of thoughts.

The amount you put down can vary a lot. It could be a trickling stream of unconnected findings, or a rushing river of ideas that just keep on running and running.

The important thing is to find a starting point, and get writing. Write and write and write until you've run out of things to say. You may end up with a complete mess of a post as it's essentially a brain dump, but you may be surprised at how coherent you can be if you have enough ideas in your head.

Too cool for rules.

A stream of consciousness post usually breaks a few rules that you might otherwise obey:

A stream of consciousness post doesn't need to have any headers.
A stream of consciousness post doesn't always have the strongest opening paragraph.
A stream of consciousness post doesn't always wrap up particularly well.

However, there are still some benefits:

It's more likely to be a post you can relate to. It's not going to end up being a set of "best practices" with no room for deviation.
It doesn't address a topic to the point that readers would have nothing to add in a comment. It has substance but leaves plenty of room for further discussion, and it does so without asking a long list of closed questions.
It flows. Headers can make a post easier to read, but they can also make a post seem disjointed.

I think you need to understand the rules and why they are there before you know when it's OK to break them. This seems to be one style of writing where breaking the rules is the order of the day.

Things that flow can help you grow.

Think of a post that doesn't have a beginning or an end. At worst, the reader jumps into the middle of a mess of thoughts that simply don't add up to a valuable read. But if you do it right, you can get a great feeling of continuity.

Let's think about this for a moment. Every post could lead into another one. You spread your ideas around like jam, but you leave little rivers of jam dripping off the core of your post: the bread. Jam goes all over the place and someone has to come and clean it up.

I think I've lost my way on that metaphor, but now I really want a jam sandwich!

Anyway, all those extra bits of jam could be spread onto new slices of bread (remember, one slice of bread = one post). Every time you go off on a tangent, which seems to happen quite often with "stream of consciousness" posting, you're setting yourself up for a new post.

Isn't it better to leave bits of ideas in your post that you can pick up later, rather than sticking to one post, piling on the jam and overdoing it?

What do you think?

Does stream of consciousness blogging open up new opportunities for you? Will you try it? Or is there simply too much talk of jam for you to think of anything else?

A beginner's guide to HTML

Ben — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:49:04 -0500

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. In simple terms, it's the language that's used to display a web page.

In your web browser - Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome or whatever you use - go to the View menu, and click on Source or Page Source (it varies depending on your browser). You will be presented with a screen of code. That code is HTML.

You don't need to know everything in HTML.

Years ago, many people constructed web pages by writing the HTML by hand. I did it for many years. It's a good thing to do if you want to write web pages from scratch, or if you're building your own system for other people to use for their sites.

However, these people are now in the minority. Chances are, you use a system that allows you to post content without writing any code at all. (if not - maybe it's time to look at alternatives!) So there really isn't much point explaining every last thing about HTML - you just won't use it.

HTML tags.

When you post a blog entry, you can add tags to it - or keywords that provide a little information about your post. For instance, a recipe might have the following tags: mince, potatoes, seasoning.

HTML includes a variety of tags, but they are not the same as tags on your blog posts. In HTML, tags are used to structure a web page - not, as many people think, to control how a web page looks. That is the job of CSS, which deserves its own tutorial. Confusingly, there are some HTML tags that do change how a page looks. Let me try and explain why HTML is still for structure, not design...

Organising a document with HTML.

Imagine a long document that is simply a continuous stream of text. It's pretty difficult to read. To allow readers to quickly locate information or simply read a document with ease, you need to use some sort of structure.

Headers and paragraphs provide two ways to organise your document. Here's how you might create a short document with headers and paragraphs using HTML.

<h1>Header 1</h1>
This is a paragraph of text to demonstrate the structure of a document.
<h2>Header 2</h2>
This is another paragraph of text, again to demonstrate the structure of a document.

h1 denotes a level 1 heading, h2 denotes a level 2 heading. p is used for paragraphs.

At this stage, it does not matter how the page looks. The important thing is for the page to be structured correctly.

Hyperlinks.

A hyperlink (to give it its full name; link is fine) allows a way for readers to move between pages. For instance, here's a link to one of my other blogs:

Top Ten Blog Tips

Here's the HTML you'd used to create this link:

Images.

If you want to include an image on your page, use this code:

<img src="http://www.yoursite.com/image.jpg" alt="Image description" />

Replace http://www.yoursite.com/image.jpg with a link to the image, and Image description with a description of the image.

There's always an exception to the rule.

Notice in the previous examples, the HTML was in the format <tag>content</tag>. But the image code I just gave you is different; it doesn't have a closing tag.

Worse still, there are actually two ways of doing this:

HTML method:

XHTML method:

The XHTML method is the one that I use. Which one you should use depends on something in the HTML you're working on: the DOCTYPE.

Getting the DOCTYPE.

A DOCTYPE is basically the document type; it refers to a DTD, which is a document type definition. This controls the tags you can use in your page.

Go back and look at the source of the site you use for blogging, if it's already online. The first line should contain a DOCTYPE tag. This will say something like XHTML Transitional, XHTML Strict, HTML Transitional, HTML Strict, or just HTML. If it says XHTML then use the XHTML method; otherwise use the HTML method.

I know this is not the nicest thing to contend with, but I think it helps to be aware of the differences in case someone helps with your code and gives you code that you don't recognise.

OK, now back to a few easier bits...

Giving weight and emphasis.

Want to make certain words stand out? That's what weight and emphasis do. This is where you have a couple of options that both do the same thing - silly really - but it may explain more about why HTML is not actually a way to design your page, just a way to organise it.

We can make text bold like this:

One word in this paragraph will be bold. Can you guess which one?

This is the method I use, but there's another way:

One word in this paragraph will be bold. Can you guess which one?

Two tags that do the same thing! And there's more. For italic text, you can use this text will be italic... or this text will be italic! Crazy huh?

Remember earlier I mentioned weight and emphasis. Well, "strong" gives extra strength to some content, and "em" gives added emphasis - whereas "b" = bold, and "i" = italic. Some sites may prefer to use something other than, or in addition to, bold or italic text to make certain bits stand out. Like this:

I could have used bold text, but instead I did something a bit different.

Now, you might be thinking that's a bit much - but it does stand out, and I'm a firm believer in "less is more" when it comes to emphasis. In other words, don't do this a lot. If you use too much bold text, or too much italic text, it just looks unprofessional.

So, although and are the same, and and are the same, perhaps and are a bit more descriptive. When I write my CSS tutorial, I'll be looking at how to make every instance of a particular tag stand out in the way I did above. (If you're curious, you could just view the source.)

So what next?

This is not meant to be a complete guide to HTML, but I've made a point to deliver it from a slightly different angle from the usual guides you read on this subject. I've tried to make it easy to understand but I know there's a lot to take in. So if you have any feedback, please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading - there will be more tutorials soon.

What is related content?

Ben — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:00:09 -0500

The concept of related content is simple: show the visitor a list of other pages that might interest them.

To see this in action, go to the following post: What are tags?

At the end of the post but before the comment box, you'll see "Related Content". How does this work?

Tagging is the key

Tags are keywords that can help visitors to find a page in future. For instance, my post "What are tags?" has the following tags:

tags, keywords, search engines, categorisation, organisation, navigation

"Tips for organising your blog" appears in the list of Related Content. That post has the following tags:

organisation, structure, navigation

Related content compares the tags on the current page with the tags on other pages on the same site. These two pages were matched up because they both use "organisation" and "navigation" as tags.

Note that tags can be single words or phrases - "What are tags?" has "search engines" as one of its tags.

Exposing visitors to other content

Once a site has more than a few pages on it, you can't expect everything to be listed on the front page. As a site grows, it can become quite difficult to jump from a new page to an old page, even if the site is well organised.

Related content goes a long way to addressing this problem. If you tag your content carefully and consistently, you may even surprise yourself with what comes up.

Think of it as a mini search engine that displays the results right on the current page. Of course, you can still search if you can't find what you're looking for, but it's good to point readers to other posts that might be of interest to them.

Under the hood

In Injader, related content is built-in - there's no need to install a plugin. It's included as part of the default theme, which is a good base for building new themes.

The posts with the most matches will appear at the top of the list, as they are considered to be the most relevant.

The drawback

The problem with related content is that it relies heavily on user input. So if you don't tag your posts well, or you don't tag them at all, it isn't going to work. Still, it's a highly valuable inclusion once you have more than a few posts on your site.

What do you think?

Do you use related content on your site?
Do you click the links when it appears on other sites?
Which do you prefer, related content or searching? Or do they both have a place?

3 quick tips for writing focused blog posts

Ben — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:16:54 -0500

I've read a lot of blog posts that start off well, but somehow lose their way. Maybe the author doesn't have enough time. Maybe they can't think of enough good subjects. Maybe they get distracted. Or maybe they just aren't enjoying the blog post all that much.

To avoid trailing off towards the end of your posts, you need to be focused right from the start, and stay that way. Here are three simple ideas that should help you in this quest.

1. Write early in the day.

We all have daily commitments. You might not be able to write first thing in the morning. But what's the alternative - writing last thing at night?

I find it very difficult to write just before I go to bed. As I'm tired, it takes longer to write the blog post. By the time I get offline and go to bed, I'm too awake to sleep. This disrupts my sleeping pattern and means I feel tired the next day, so I am less productive.

If you come home from work and write your blog entry quite early into the evening, you'll be able to switch off once you're done. If you can blog in the morning or afternoon instead of late at night, that's even better. Blogging isn't something to "get out of the way", but it shouldn't interrupt your sleep.

2. Tackle large subjects in logical stages.

Let's say I want to write about how to write great content for your blog (as I'm doing here). This is potentially a huge topic and it would be foolish to try and write a definitive guide in one post. Instead, what I do is break it down into several specific blog entries so I can really get into the detail of each subject.

As each blog entry will be quite specific, it should be a lot easier to write, and a lot easier for my target audience to read. I'm much more likely to do a good job of the smaller blog entries than if I were to write a big sprawling blog entry with loads of general ideas but no real depth to the information.

Write about a very specific topic and you can write in a lot more detail.

3. Save tangents for future entries.

Sometimes when you're writing a blog entry, you may find that you start to go off on a tangent. You may forget why you started the blog entry in the first place and what your conclusion was going to be.

Instead of getting bogged down by subjects you didn't intend to write about in the first place, make a note of the subject for a future post. You can then give the topic a proper airing. People will be much more likely to read your blog if you try to keep to the topic you're writing about. Otherwise, it feels as if you're trying to do too much, and it just gets confusing.

What do you think?

How do you keep your blog posts focused?

A quick guide to keyboard shortcuts

Ben — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:46:58 -0500

These aren't just useful for bloggers, they are useful for all PC users! Here are some of the basic shortcuts - not all of these are available in every application, it depends on the program:

General Purpose

Shortcut	What does it do?
CTRL+X	Cut
CTRL+C	Copy
CTRL+V	Paste
CTRL+Z	Undo
CTRL+Y	Redo
CTRL+A	Select All
ALT+F4	Close Program
Shift+F4	Close Document/Tab
CTRL+W	Close Document/Tab
ALT+Tab	Switch between programs (add Shift to go in the opposite direction)
CTRL+Tab	Switch between tabs (add Shift to go in the opposite direction)

Formatting

Shortcut	What does it do?
CTRL+B	Bold
CTRL+I	Italic
CTRL+U	Underline

Document Management

Shortcut	What does it do?
CTRL+N	New
CTRL+O	Open
CTRL+S	Save
F12	Save As
CTRL+P	Print

Tools

Shortcut	What does it do?
Windows Key + E	Windows Explorer
Windows Key + F	Find/Search
Windows Key + R	Run

Internet

Shortcut	What does it do?
CTRL+D	Bookmark
ALT+left arrow	Back
ALT+right arrow	Forward

Can you think of any more? Post a comment below and I'll add them to the list. Thanks!

Tips for organising your blog

Ben — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:38:18 -0500

Keeping your posts organised allows readers to find content much more easily. As time goes on and you add content, this becomes more and more important. Here are some tips to help you on your way.

Subscribe to your site.

This is a good thing to do anyway, but it can help with keeping your blog organised. Try subscribing to your own site and reading your posts after you publish them. In doing so, you may be able to highlight and address navigational issues.

For instance, I've seen a "read more" link in a site feed that leads to a page with the same content as the feed and a second "read more" link on the blog. This is a waste of time and could be prevented if the author subscribed to their own feed.

Use simple and consistent navigation.

Whether you're viewing a blog entry, the home page, or the about page, you should be able to get to the main areas of a site via the navigation links across the top.

Try to limit the amount of different navigation methods you use - the more lists of links you have, the more confusing your site will be to navigate.

Organise your content.

In the beginning, organisation is less of an issue because you don't have many posts. As your blog grows, you need to think carefully about how your content is organised. Do you have every post under "Blog" or have you organised your posts into categories? Have you grouped your best posts together? What about posts that are part of a series?

Don't rely on date-based navigation.

Many blogging platforms organise posts by date. For a blog where the date is important, this may be sufficient, but not all blogs will be easy to navigate if this is the only way to find older posts.

Think long-term. Will your posts be easy to find if you only provide date-based navigation? Would categories help?

Don't go overboard with hierarchy.

Micro-management of your site navigation can make it very difficult for visitors to know where to find things. Having too many sections or categories invariably leads to situations where a post could go in one of two places. If you can't figure out where to put it, will your readers be able to find it? Will you?

Planning is the key.

Don't put off organising your posts. It's a lot more work if you have to move loads of posts in the future than if you get the structure working well from the start.

Think of how your site should be structured before you jump right in. This will make it easier for your readers to navigate your site without having to click over and over again just to find a post.

What do you think?

How organised is your blog?
What about the other blogs you visit?

Hosted or self-hosted?

Ben — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:21:58 -0500

We've already covered what to look for when choosing a blogging platform. One of the most important factors is whether your blog will be hosted or self-hosted. This guide looks at what this means for your blog.

Jargon buster

First things first, a "blogging platform" refers to the system you use to publish content on a blog. It can be a simple blogging system, or a content management system.

"Hosted" refers to a blogging platform where all you have to do is sign up, and the blog is ready to go. A few hosted blogs include Blogger, WordPress.com, TypePad, Vox, and LiveJournal.

"Self-hosted" refers to a blogging platform that you download and install on a web server. These include WordPress, Injader, MovableType, and Serendipity. Some self-hosted systems can be installed very quickly via a tool called Fantastico, which provides a "one-click install" from your website control panel.

Is the system tied to the hosting?

Some platforms are only available as a self-hosted option, whereas others are only available as a hosted option. This can make it difficult to choose if the platform will work for you. Being forced to use a hosted platform can be very restrictive, and having to self-host is not much use if you don't already have your own hosting.

The self-hosted route is workable though. You can install WampServer on a Windows PC and use it to install self-hosted blogging software. Then you can test the software "locally", i.e. on your own computer, without having to pay for hosting first.

A hosted platform may sound very convenient, but if you can't download and install the software, it's difficult to give it a proper trial run before you commit to using that platform.

Transferring to other systems

Some hosted platforms do not allow you to transfer your data to other systems, something that is quite common in self-hosted platforms.

It's not a guarantee that all hosted platforms prevent you from exporting your data, or that self-hosted platforms always allow it, but at least with a self-hosted platform it's possible to get someone to write an export script if one does not already exist.

Self-hosted blogging is a far safer route in terms of being able to move to another system in the future.

Support

Good support should be very high on your list of requirements with any blogging platform. If the support is good, it doesn't matter if you're using a hosted or a self-hosted platform. But if you're using a hosted platform and the support is bad, especially if the reliability of the service is poor, it's going to become a source of frustration.

With a self-hosted platform, the support should still be good, but you can be a little bit more forgiving as the platform vendor is not also hosting your site.

Before committing to anything, try out the pre-sales support, ask questions, and report any bugs you might find while testing the system. The responses you receive will give you an idea of what to expect in future. A professional and courteous response is a good start, but ignoring major bugs for months on end is not a good sign even if the staff are friendly. There's always a reason for this kind of thing, so keep an eye out and see how you get on.

File and image hosting

Even if you go with a hosted platform, you're still going to need a place to upload images. Not all hosted platforms provide this, most charge for it, or give you very limited space if you're using the system for free.

You can use alternative image hosting services, but it can be quite inconvenient to store images on one site and your blog on another. One one hand, if you store everything in one place and the site goes down, the whole thing goes down. On the other hand, if the site goes down, it may not matter whether the images can be viewed separately if they're just graphics for your site theme. If you use a site such as Flickr to share photos, these can be viewed regardless of whether your blog is running, but you'll have to pay for a Flickr Pro account if you want to upload a lot of photos.

Backups

With a self-hosted platform, you do have to organise your own backups, but you're in complete control of them. Once you have set up your backups, you can download them daily or weekly, or on a custom schedule - it's up to you. If anything goes wrong, you can restore from a backup. It may sound like a lot to be concerned with, but what you gain in work you also gain in flexibility.

Some web hosting companies are very good at doing regular backups and will restore them for you, but you shouldn't rely on this. It is a good fallback option if your own backups fail for some reason, but you should do your own backups anyway.

With a hosted platform, backups are done on someone else's schedule. Until you have to request a restore (which hopefully you won't have to do, but it can happen), you have no idea how reliable or recent the backups are. This doesn't mean it's going to be bad, but how do you know? Do you really want to be left with no backup if things go wrong?

Upgrades

With self-hosted blogging, you have to do your own upgrades. As long as you don't have to upgrade too often, this isn't a major problem. Although security updates should be applied as soon as possible, sometimes you may find an upgrade is optional. You can wait for a later version before you upgrade, and get several updates in one go.

With a hosted platform, this can be a double-edged sword. Upgrades are done for you, but you have no say in when they are done. Bugs that can occur in an upgrade may be at best a slight annoyance, or at worst a danger to your blog. You can't go back on an upgrade - you have to wait for a fix. Some hosted platforms handle upgrades in a very professional way, others do not fare so well. Your mileage may vary.

Which route is right for you?

A lot of factors need to be considered. A lack of time, money, and/or technical expertise may force you into a hosted platform. But is it the best option for you in the long run?

Ultimately, only you can make that decision. Perfectly good blogs survive well on a hosted platform. Other blogs swear by the self-hosted route. I recommend self-hosted, but it's your choice. The main thing is to choose one route and stick to it.

What do you think?

Understanding hex colour codes, part 2

Ben — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:53:28 -0500

In Understanding hex colour codes, we looked at some of the basics of colour codes. This post adds some more colour charts to get some of the in-between values.

We need to take the last row from the colour chart in part 1 and change one of the other values. There are more possibilities here though, so we have two columns for each colour.

Colour Chart 2

Reds 1	Reds 2	Greens 1	Greens 2	Blues 1	Blues 2
#F00	#F00	#0F0	#0F0	#00F	#00F
#F10	#F01	#1F0	#0F1	#10F	#01F
#F20	#F02	#2F0	#0F2	#20F	#02F
#F30	#F03	#3F0	#0F3	#30F	#03F
#F40	#F04	#4F0	#0F4	#40F	#04F
#F50	#F05	#5F0	#0F5	#50F	#05F
#F60	#F06	#6F0	#0F6	#60F	#06F
#F70	#F07	#7F0	#0F7	#70F	#07F
#F80	#F08	#8F0	#0F8	#80F	#08F
#F90	#F09	#9F0	#0F9	#90F	#09F
#FA0	#F0A	#AF0	#0FA	#A0F	#0AF
#FB0	#F0B	#BF0	#0FB	#B0F	#0BF
#FC0	#F0C	#CF0	#0FC	#C0F	#0CF
#FD0	#F0D	#DF0	#0FD	#D0F	#0DF
#FE0	#F0E	#EF0	#0FE	#E0F	#0EF
#FF0	#F0F	#FF0	#0FF	#F0F	#0FF

Notice that we now have three pairs of two colours. This means that the final colour chart only needs to have three columns, as we change the final character from 0 to F.

Colour Chart 3

Yellow	Pink	Blue
#FF0	#F0F	#0FF
#FF1	#F1F	#1FF
#FF2	#F2F	#2FF
#FF3	#F3F	#3FF
#FF4	#F4F	#4FF
#FF5	#F5F	#5FF
#FF6	#F6F	#6FF
#FF7	#F7F	#7FF
#FF8	#F8F	#8FF
#FF9	#F9F	#9FF
#FFA	#FAF	#AFF
#FFB	#FBF	#BFF
#FFC	#FCF	#CFF
#FFD	#FDF	#DFF
#FFE	#FEF	#EFF
#FFF	#FFF	#FFF

We've now gone all the way from black to white.

There are a lot more colours though. These charts only include the colours where the hex code is made up of pairs of letters and numbers, e.g. FFFF22, FFCCFF, 003366 and so on. A code like 003572 would not be included. You can try experimenting with some of the colours to see how they look. This is the best way to determine if a colour will work for your site or not.