HTML Tutorials
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Overview

A semantic element is one that clearly describes the meaning of its content to both the browser and the code developer for ease of organizing the page data. Instead of simply using a <div> tag to section off the contents of a document into its various chunks (for instance, header, content, sidebar, and footer) it is better to use a structure indicative to what the various parts of the site represent by using semantic elements.

The user will not see the semantic element labeling, but it will allow them and the browsser to get a better “feel” for how the document is laid out, and therefore they will be able to navigate the document more comfortably.

Below is a sample of how you might section of the various parts of a page to make things easier to understand.

HTML Semantic Structure

Note

This is only one of many possibilities of how to use and where to use the semantic tags. Some of the tags are more obvious than others, but there is a lot of flexibility in using the semantic tags. For example, your sections might not have a header or a footer or you may have a dozen sections.

Below are the tags generally accepted to be semantic elements.

Semantic Tags

  • HTML – Building with Semantic Elements
    A semantic element is one that clearly describes the meaning of its content to both the browser and the code developer for ease of organizing the page data.
  • HTML – Address Tag
    The <address> tag defines the contact information for the owner of a document/article and can be an email address, URL, physical address, phone number, etc.
  • HTML – Article Tag
    The <article> tag is used in a blog post, forum post, magazine article, etc. It specifies a self-contained composition in a site, document, or page.
  • HTML – Aside Tag
    The <aside> tag refers to content loosely related to the rest of the page content. If it is removed, the remaining content will still make sense.
  • HTML – Bi-Directional Isolation Tag
    The <bdi> tag (bi-directional isolation tag) is used to isolates text that may be formatted in a different direction from the other text surrounding it.
  • HTML – Figure Caption Tag
    The <figcaption> tag defines a caption for a photo set inside the <figure> tag.
  • HTML – Figure Tag
    The <figure> tag is used to mark up a photo in a document to add the <figcaption> tag which defines a caption for the photo.
  • HTML – Footer Tag
    The <footer> tag defines a footer for a document or section within a document. It often contains contact info, copyright, and a sitemap, amongst other things.
  • HTML – Header Tag
    The <header> element is a container for things like a logo, breadcrumbs, navigation links, or other introductory content.
  • HTML – Main Tag
    The <main> tag specifies the main content of a page and should not contain anything that is repeated across other pages such as sidebars, navigation, etc.
  • HTML – Mark Tag
    The <mark> tag defines text that should be marked or highlighted for reference purposes or for its relevance in some context.
  • HTML – Nav Tag
    The <nav> tag defines a set of navigation links intended to be a navigation block such as a main menu, sidebar menu, or footer menu.
  • HTML – Section Tag
    The <section> tag specifies a section in a document. There can be multiple sections on the same page.
  • HTML – Time Tag
    The <time> tag is used for displaying a human-readable date and time. The datetime attribute is added to translate it into a machine-readable format.
  • HTML – Word Break Tag
    The <wbr> (word break opportunity) tag specifies where, in a string of text, it would be preferred to add a line break if necessary.

HTML Notes:

  • In our HTML section the term “tag” and “element” are often used interchangeably to refer to both the tag used to create a page element and the element created by the tag (<p> tag = <p> element = paragraph on the page)
  • HTML5 is not case sensitive; so <P> is the same as <p>, <H1> is the same as <h1>
  • Global attributes can be used with all HTML tags and are therefore not mentioned on every tag page
  • To write clean, readable HTML code, it is best to use indentation whereas elements within elements are indented (tabbed or spaces) to create something that looks like a project outline
  • The browser will automatically remove any extra spaces and lines in your HTML code when the page is displayed
  • Double quotes or single quotes can be used around HTML attribute values, but when the attribute value itself contains one form of quote, it will be necessary to use the other around the attribute
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We’d like to acknowledge that we learned a great deal of our coding from W3Schools and TutorialsPoint, borrowing heavily from their teaching process and excellent code examples. We highly recommend both sites to deepen your experience, and further your coding journey. We’re just hitting the basics here at 1SMARTchicken.