HTML best practices, guidelines and resources for your development career

HTML is one of the pillars of web development. It plays an important role in the frontend of most websites, so it is important for every developer to learn this programming language. However, like any other programming language, there are frameworks, rules and guidelines that must be followed.

In this article, you'll learn everything you need to know about HTML best practices, starting with the meaning of HTML and the technical terms you need to understand to learn HTML. We also address some of the most common challenges that you can overcome by applying these best practices and HTML guidelines.

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What is HTML?

HTML is an acronym that stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is the programming language that determines the content structure of a website. It is used for both static and dynamic websites and usually goes hand in hand with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript. It helps developers find a common theme for the entire website.

HTML allows website content to be structured into headings, various introductory content, subheadings and bullet points. In addition to structuring websites, HTML is also used for hyperlinks to different parts of a website. HTML is also used as the basis for navigation bars, which are crucial to a website's navigation menu.

HTML has been the standard for web development since 1993. Various versions of HTML have been developed over the years. These include HTML 1.0, HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01 and HTML5.

5 Concepts You Must Understand for HTML Best Practices

If you are new to HTML, there are a few concepts you need to understand before you start studying HTML guidelines. These concepts will give you a clearer picture of how HTML works and how you can apply it to your projects. Five of these key concepts are listed below.

1. tags. A tag is one of the most important elements of HTML because it is used to define characters for commands on a web page. HTML tags determine the quality and structure of the visual content displayed on a web page. When you view a web page in HTML format, you should be able to see the tags in your browser bar.
2. Quirks mode. If a web browser cannot read and validate a website's doctype, it automatically switches to quirks mode. Some modern browsers maintain backwards compatibility if the programmer inserts an outdated doctype declaration, but this is bad practice for search engine optimization and web page crawling.
3. Source code. In HTML programming, source code refers to the human-readable lines of code created by a programmer and saved as a file. This source code is used to provide instructions to the computer via a compiler. It is the rawest form of code and should be written with extreme care.
4. Inline style. Adding inline styles to your HTML code is a practice of adding stylization rules directly to a single element in the code's start tag. Thanks to inline styling, only the individual element that was manipulated is affected and not the entire website.
5. Div tags. Div tags, also popularly known as div tags, are HTML tags used to divide parts of a website and divide content on a single web page. Div is typically used to separate tags on a template, e.g. B. Header, content block, footer and image tags. Think of the div tag as a container for individual HTML elements.

5 common challenges that HTML guidelines can solve

HTML is one of the most basic programming languages, which is why beginners often choose to start with this language. However, this often means that programming in general is new to them. There are best practices to promote efficiency in the software development process. Applying the tips mentioned is the best way to take your website development skills from the bad practice column to the expert web developer column. As you practice your skills, we've listed the five most common problems you'll see below. All of these problems can be solved by applying HTML best practices.

Create dynamic pages

HTML is inherently a static markup language that cannot produce dynamic output. However, if you know HTML best practices, you will learn how to combine HTML with other programming languages ​​and frameworks to create dynamic pages.

Incorrect display of doctypes

If you don't know HTML best practices for correct doctype declaration, you won't be able to create pages that appear the way you want in different web browsers. If the Doctype declaration is incorrect or no declaration is made at all, the document automatically switches to Quirks mode.

Poor ranking in search engines

According to Website Setup, approximately 576,000 websites are currently created every day. But your website must rank well in search engines. One way to stay relevant in the search engines is to follow HTML best practices when designing a website.

High bounce rate

Every time your website or web-based application is visited, an automatic timer records how long a visitor stays on the website. If visitors simply enter and leave the website without engaging with the content, the bounce rate increases. Most of the factors that increase a website's bounce rate can be resolved by applying HTML best practices.

Coding according to W3C standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a global community that develops best practices and guidelines to ensure the continuity of the Internet. This committee recommends, among other things: Best practices for coding HTML. If you have a solid knowledge of HTML best practices, your websites and web applications will comply with W3C standards.

Top 10 HTML Practices and Guidelines

The best HTML practices are not contained in a single set of rules or written by a single developer. Various HTML experts can contribute to the best practices by recommending them to the community. Over time, you too can write reports about discoveries and changes that can improve HTML programming. The following list will help you get started with HTML programming.

Don't underestimate the doctype declaration

As mentioned earlier, there are different versions of HTML. The Doctype or document type declaration is simply the instructions you use to ensure that the web browser understands which version of HTML you used when creating the web page.

If you mess up your doctype declaration or ignore it altogether, your page may not follow the correct path and therefore not look the way you intended. After selecting your doctype, insert it at the beginning of your document, before the language tag and header. When used correctly, the Doctype declaration helps the W3C HTML validator determine how to validate the document.

Optimize tags for site structure

You can't use HTML if you don't know how to manipulate the tags in the content hierarchy. There are various tags available for HTML that, when used correctly, can either make or break a website. After the doctype declaration, the next tag should be the header, followed by the body and footer tags.

In addition to structure tags, you should also include tags to add more formatting details to your website. This includes title tags, image tags, break tags, bold and italic tags. Adding these into your website's original HTML source code will make the final product clearer, more functional, and more readable. Proper use of tags is also important for search engine optimization.

Avoid clutter on your site

The elements of your website must look and function correctly. However, if there are too many elements or they are poorly organized, the clutter can significantly increase the size of the page. An unnecessarily large website takes too much time to load, so you should eliminate the clutter by optimizing the semantic code.

In addition to removing unnecessary elements, you can also prevent this by developing responsive fonts, establishing page hierarchy, and reducing color fonts and palettes. It also helps if you start optimizing clutter early in the web development process and don't wait until you've completed the project to clean it up.

Beware of inline styles

Something as simple as inline styles can mess up your entire website when it's time for an upgrade. Inline styles allow you to customize your theme from source code. Unfortunately, this type of design presents a challenge when you need to make a major website update.

As an alternative to inline directives, consider using external style sheets. External style sheets are customizable, functional, and easy to change without having to rework the site's original code. Using external style sheets is not only an HTML best practice, but also a CSS best practice.

Optimize meta tags

Meta tags are used to make pages more meaningful and insightful. They show that you wrote your code with search engine optimization in mind because they tell search engines and other user agents what the website is about. You can optimize your meta tags by making them more descriptive. These tags make room for meta titles and meta descriptions that are added to every post on a website.

When writing your meta tags, use active keywords that clearly describe the services the website offers. For example, if the website For example, if you offer homework help, you should ensure that the words homework help or homework help appear in the meta description.

Be careful how you use divs

Div tags are great for structuring and accommodating different HTML elements in a template. However, using too many or inappropriate div tags will only clutter your template. Use div tags only when necessary and when there is absolutely no other way to make the template work.

You should use div tags when you start designing your template. Otherwise, you will have to find the appropriate places to insert the tags later, which will take more time.

Rely on CSS for styling

When it comes to web development, CSS and HTML should complement each other. Although CSS can be used with any XML attribute-based markup language, it is most commonly used with HTML, and for good reason. Major search engines like Google and Bing prefer websites developed with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

You can implement CSS files for visual context in three different ways. This includes inline, external and internal files. Each option has its pros and cons depending on what you plan on doing for your project. Make sure you learn how to use CSS and limit yourself to one style per template.

Stick to lowercase letters

Professional HTML developers believe that it is better to use lowercase letters than to combine lowercase and uppercase letters.

Consider automatic markup validation
Code validation is another important part of the entire programming process that you should not overlook. Simply put, code validation is about checking the quality of the code written to ensure that it meets W3C global standards.

The W3C offers a free automated markup checker, but adhering to W3C coding standards doesn't mean your website is perfect. You should only use them as a guide and make improvements as needed.

Close every tag

When writing HTML code, be sure to close all tags so that the website displays correctly in web browsers. Adding closing tags is one of the key W3C specifications. If you don't do this, some web browsers may render your site in quirks mode, but most major browsers will simply avoid your site or render it in an incorrect format.

How to learn best HTML practices

When you study HTML, you will learn best practices as part of your lessons. You can turn to bootcamps, online courses, or a formal software development degree to learn HTML guidelines and best practices.

Should you learn HTML best practices?

Yes, you should learn as many HTML best practices as possible if you want to be successful in web development. HTML is one of the most important codes in the world, and its best practices have been refined by developers over time. Learning one or two best practices probably isn't enough, but learning all 10 best practices listed above will get you off to a good start.