The most common HTML tags we see used
Here are some of the most common HTML tags we see used, their purpose, and the documentation on their usage.
nav
Represents a section of a page whose purpose is to provide navigation links, either within the current document or to other documents. Common examples of navigation sections are menus, tables of contents, and indexes.
section
Represents a standalone section — which doesn't have a more specific semantic element to represent it — contained within an HTML document.
main
Represents the dominant content of the
<body>of a document. The main content area consists of content that is directly related to or expands upon the central topic of a document, or the central functionality of an application.
header
Represents introductory content, typically a group of introductory or navigational aids. It may contain some heading elements but could also contain a logo, a search form, an author name, and other elements.
article
Represents a self-contained composition in a document, page, application, or site, which is intended to be independently distributable or reusable (e.g., in syndication). Examples include: a forum post, a magazine or newspaper article, or a blog entry.
aside
Represents a portion of a document whose content is only indirectly related to the document's main content.
footer
Represents a footer for its nearest sectioning content or sectioning root element. A footer typically contains information about the author of the section, copyright data or links to related documents.
figure
Represents self-contained content, frequently with a caption (
<figcaption>), and is typically referenced as a single unit.
figcaption
Represents a caption or legend for the rest of the contents of its parent
<figure>element, if any.
blockquote
Indicates that the enclosed text is an extended quotation. Usually, this is rendered visually by indentation (see Notes for how to change it). A URL for the source of the quotation may be given using the cite attribute, while a text representation of the source can be given using the
<cite>element.
h1, through h6
Represent six levels of section headings.
<h1>is the highest section level and<h6>is the lowest.
p
Represents a paragraph.
ul
Represents an unordered list of items, typically rendered as a bulleted list.
ol
Represents an ordered list of items, typically rendered as a numbered list.
img
Embeds an image into the document
a
Referred to as the anchor element, creates a hyperlink to other web pages, files, locations within the same page, email addresses, or any other URL.
div
Is the generic container for flow content. It has no effect on the content or layout until styled using CSS.
em
Marks text that has stress emphasis. The
<em>element can be nested, with each level of nesting indicating a greater degree of emphasis.
q
Indicates that the enclosed text is a short inline quotation. Most modern browsers implement this by surrounding the text in quotation marks.
span
Is a generic inline container for phrasing content, which does not inherently represent anything. It can be used to group elements for styling purposes (using the class or id attributes)
table
Represents tabular data — that is, information presented in a two-dimensional table comprised of rows and columns of cells containing data. See
<tbody>,<thead>,<tr>, and<td>