HTML Basics


HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and it is one of the major markup languages used for the web pages. With HTML codes, you can integrate text, sounds, images and links on a single platform that can be viewed with the help of web browsers. Here are some basic HTML markup tags used in the process and these tags are usually known as HTML tags.

  • All HTML tags are keywords surrounded by angle brackets <html>
  • HTML tags come in pairs; <a> and </a>
  • The first tag is the 'start tag' and the second is the 'end tag'
  • Start and end tags are also called 'opening tags' and 'closing tags'

For learning HTML, you need an HTML editor, a web server or a website. Professional web developers often use various HTML editors like Dreamweaver or FrontPage, but you can simply use notepad for writing the basic HTML codes.

Headings make a site more accessible and they are created with h1 - h6 elements as they define a format and structure of the headings. These headings also help in highlighting important topics as well. They are considered very important in emphasizing important keywords for Search Engine Optimization purposes, according to SEO Expert Laurent Van Dessel. This is why the HTML headings are often defined with <h1> to <h6> tags. Example:
While paragraphs can be defined with <p> tags: HTML site links can also be can be defined with <a> tag.
Similarly, HTML images can be defined with <img> tag. The body elements define the HTML document body and it has and element of the start tag <body> and an end tag </body>.

Next, it is about HTML elements that include everything from start tag to end tag and are composed of general three elements:

  • HTML tags with 'start tag' and 'end tag'
  • Few elements within the tags are also the attributes of the code
  • Includes all graphical, textual and all information content that will be rendered for display

The HTML elements follow certain syntax:

  • All HTML elements start with start tag or opening tag
  • All HTML elements end with end tag or closing tag
  • Elements content is everything between start and the end tag
  • Few HTML elements can be empty content
  • All empty elements gets closed in the start tag
  • Most HTML elements have attributes

A typical HTML coding including of all basic elements looks like this:

HTML has certain attributes that provide a string of information, where each supplies additional information and are specified with a start tag. A typical HTML looks like the following:

All HTML formatting is done with tags like <b> and <i> while they can be used for making the text bold and italic respectively. Here is a list of some of the most commonly used Text formatting tags of HTML.

  • <big> Defines big text
  • <em> Defines emphasized text
  • <i> Defines italic text
  • <small> Defines small text
  • <strong> Defines strong text
  • <sub> Defines subscripted text
  • <sup> Defines superscripted text
  • <code> Defines computer code text
  • <kbd> Defines keyboard text
  • <samp> Defines sample computer code
  • <tt> Defines teletype text

This article was all about providing you with the basic idea of an HTML page. Now you can apply these methods to build your first webpage, which although will be a simple one, but will certainly reflect an honest effort.

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