Semantic HTML tags are used to structure your website’s content. This helps ensure that screen readers and other assistive technology correctly interpret it. Using these elements correctly improves the accessibility of your site for people with disabilities and can also increase its SEO. Here are a few benefits of using semantic HTML tags on your website:
SEO
Semantic HTML is a way to write code that helps search engines understand the purpose of a page and how it is displayed. This can help your website be indexed better and appear in more prominent places on search engine results pages. Semantic HTML for SEO can also make your website more accessible to those with disabilities or who rely on screen readers. This is especially important because it can improve the user experience for visually impaired people with trouble reading print. SEO is a complex process, but understanding how to optimize your website for SEO can make all the difference. You can use the correct HTML tags and ensure your content is arranged well for search engines to read. One of the most common ways to organize your content is through h1>, h2>, and h3> tags. These tags define the level of importance of headlines and subheads.
Accessibility
Semantic HTML is one of the best ways to enhance your website’s user experience and SEO. It can make your code easier to read, more search-engine friendly, and more accessible to assistive technologies like screen readers. It’s also lighter in file size than non-semantic spaghetti code, making it easier to use on mobile devices. It also helps search engines rank pages more effectively by weighing important content appropriately. Accessibility is providing a web page’s information to all users, regardless of their abilities or how they perceive it visually. The best way to ensure accessibility is to create organized and logical content. This is often achieved through the proper use of tags. For example, a paragraph is usually marked with the p> label, while a heading is a h1> element.
Convenience
Semantic HTML provides a meaningful structure for screen readers and search engines to understand web pages. It also ensures that browsers apply default accessibility features when displayed on a page. One of the biggest reasons to use semantic HTML is that it helps make your website more accessible for people with disabilities. This can include things like keyboard accessibility or audio support. While this might be a minor deal for small pages, it can be quite the difference when considering the whole of your website. Another significant benefit of using semantic tags is that it helps to maintain a consistent and clean HTML code structure for your website. This makes it easier for search engines to scan and evaluate your site and weigh its content appropriately, which can help it rank higher in search engine results. Semantic HTML is also more convenient for developers and designers to work with. It helps them to quickly wade through a page’s coding and find specific elements that need to be updated or added.
User Experience
Semantic HTML makes it easier for users to navigate your website. This also helps search engines and screen readers better interpret your content. This is because semantic HTML tags are chosen based on the importance and structure of your content rather than the way they appear visually. For example, h1> and h2> tags are used to indicate top-level headings, and p> tags indicate paragraphs of text. Similarly, header>, nav>, and main> tags denote sections of your web page. The nav> tag is an important SEO element, as it helps lay out your site’s hierarchy for search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s not a good idea to include a navigation menu inside the main section of your page, as this can confuse visitors and search engines.