Discover semantic HTML: Understanding its usefulness in 10 points

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What is Semantic HTML ?

Le Semantic HTML is a way of writing HTML code that emphasises the meaning of the tags used rather than their appearance.

In other words, it's about structuring a web page according to the meaning of the content it presents, and not based solely on the visual layout.

Why use semantic HTML?

The use of semantic markup offers a number of advantages for developers, browsers and search engines, such as Google and even end users. These are the 10 main reasons which explain why it is important to use semantic HTML :

1. Accessibility : A clear structure makes navigation easier for people with disabilities, making your pages more accessible to a wide range of users.
2. Ease of maintenance : Organised, well-defined code will also make your site much easier to maintain and update. Problems will be easier to spot and resolve if your content is properly structured.
3. Search engine optimisation : SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will be greatly improved with semantic tagging. Search engines are able to understand the content of your pages and index them more efficiently if you use tags that reflect their meaning.
4. Compatibility : Semantic code is generally better supported by browsers, which ensures that your site functions correctly on a large number of platforms and devices.
5. Fast rendering : Simple pages written with semantic tags tend to load faster.

The basic elements of semantic HTML

To successfully create a page semantic webWhen creating a semantic website, it is essential to be aware of certain key elements. We are now going to look at some of the most important and commonly used elements for defining the structure and content of our pages when creating semantic websites.

The doctype

The first thing to add to your HTML file is the declaration ''. This tells the browser which HTML specification model to follow. In this particular case (), it means that it should adopt the HTML5 mode, which encompasses some of the best features introduced for creating semantic content.

Section tags

• • : Used to define the document or section header.
  • : Contains the main content of your page.
  • : Specifies that a piece of content is self-sufficient, i.e. it could be separated or reused elsewhere without losing its meaning.
  • : Indicates a generic content section, generally used for thematic grouping of content.

Text tags

As well as section tags, which organise the overall structure of your page, there are also text tags, which are used to format the content. inside in these sections. Here are some of the most common tags:

• • <h1>, <h2>etc : These tags are used to indicate the titles and subtitles in your document. Their importance decreases from <h1> (the most important) to <h6> (the least important).
  • <p> : Designates a paragraph.
  • <a> : Creates hypertext links to other documents or web pages.
  • <img> : Allows you to integrate images into your document. It is important to provide a text description of the image (alternative text) to help visually impaired people and search engines understand what the image represents.

The additional benefits of semantic HTML

In addition to the obvious advantages in terms of better use of resources, accessibility and referencing, there are other reasons for choosing to use semantic HTML rather than generic tags such as <div> and <span> :

• Improved legibility : A website Well-structured code with consistent tags makes your code easier to read and understand by other developers as well as yourself.
• Flexibility : Clearly defining the role of each element makes it much easier to adapt styles CSS and allows developers to reuse these styles in different parts of the site without too much difficulty.
• Time saving : The clarity provided by semantic markup makes it quicker and easier to create, preview and modify sections.

To sum up, there is no doubt that the use of semantic tags is a major asset for any web project. With its many advantages in terms of accessibility, SEO, performance and much more, this approach makes it possible to produce robust web pages adapted to current and future needs.