Whether you are starting a blog or you own a personal blog, HTML is important in every aspect of blogging.
Today I’m going to share some HTML Basics that every Blogger should know. These HTML basics are helpful for both WordPress/Blogspot bloggers.
Table of Contents
What is HTML?
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. We use HTML for creating web pages or websites. Any web page you see on the Internet is written using HTML code.
All the HTML elements are represented by HTML tags (e.g. <title>). Browser does not show these HTML tags but by the help of HTML tags, they display the content of the page.
Let us move to some of the basic HTML tags that you should know.
Basic HTML Tags & Codes
HTML tags are element name surrounded by angle brackets. While editing your blog post you have seen many HTML tags. Basic HTML tags are:
1. HTML Declaration & Root Element
In order to declare that the document is HTML, we use declaration tag at the start of HTML code. It is represented as <!DOCTYPE html>. You can see a practical example of this tag in the start of HTML code in Blogger theme HTML editor.

The root element of an HTML page is <html>, It’s end tag is </html>.
Every element in HTML has a starting tag ( <tagname> ) and an end tag (</tagname>).
The root element starts at the start of HTML code and ends at the end of HTML code.
2. The <head> tag
The metadata of any web page or blog post is contained in between the head tags ( i.e. <head> and </head>). It contains meta description, keywords, slug about the web page.
Browsers do not display content inside the head tags but, it helps search engines to find your web page.
The head tags are placed after the starting of an <html> tag and before the <body> tag.
3. The <body> tag
This is very important tag as all the data between the body tags (<body> & </body> ) are displayed in the web browser. It contains headings, sub-headings, paragraph, etc. It starts after the end of the head tag. The structure of HTML page is as:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title HERE</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Heading goes here</h1>
<p>Paragraph goes here.</p>
</body>
</html>
4. HTML Headings & Paragraph
Inside the body tag, while using headings we use <h1> tag for most important heading, <h2> for next important heading & so on <h6> for least important headings.
<h1>Heading 1 goes here </h1>
<h2>Heading 2 goes here </h2>
........and so on.
In a similar way, we can use HTML tags for paragraphs. The starting tag for a paragraph is <p> and the ending tag is </p>.
<p> Paragraph goes here.</p>
5. Use of Empty Tag
Empty elements are those tags which do not contain any content. We can represent an empty tag as: <br>. It does not have an end tag. You can use it to display space between lines.
6. HTML Links
In order to use links in your text content, you have to define the links using <a> tags as shown below :
<a href="https://harishjoshi.com"> Harish Joshi Blog </a>
Here the link is shown by Blue color & link text by Red color.
7. HTML Images
The use of tags in HTML images is same as in HTML links. Here we use <img> attribute.
<img src="image.png" alt="Image" width="104" height="142">
Here, image address is represented by pink color, alt title by red color, image width by blue color & image height by the orange color.
8. HTML Buttons
HTML buttons are basically used to submit or reset data. The tags used for creating HTML buttons are <button> and </button>.
<button> Click Here </button>
9. HTML Lists
There are two type of lists: i) Unordered List (Bullet List) ii) Ordered List (Numbered List)
In order to create an Unordered list, you have to define the HTML in this way :
<ul>
<li>Cricket</li>
<li>Football</li>
<li>Hockey</li>
</ul>
Similarly, If we have to create an ordered list we define HTML as :
<ol>
<li>Cricket</li>
<li>Football</li>
<li>Hockey</li>
</ol>
10. HTML Quotations
In addition to <blockquote> tags for HTML Quotations, you can also use cite attribute to give credit to the original source of the quote. It is best shown by the example below:
<blockquote cite="https://harishjoshi.com">
If you are born poor it's not your mistake,
but if you die poor it's your mistake
</blockquote>
Other Related Posts :
- Step by Step guide to starting a free blog in Blogger
- Make Money Online Guide for College Students in 2018
- Add PayPal Donate Button to Blogger & make supplementary income
Final Words
These are the basic tags and HTML codes, you should know before starting a blog. The above guide includes the use of all basic code you use (or need to use) in your blog posts.
Let me know your thoughts about this post in the comment box.
Oh great, this can help. Good job for you harish.
Thanks Puspa for your valuable comment.I hope this post helps you in blogging !😊
Thank you for you effort really I think to create page in Instagram like a blogger retry to use it 💜
Hi Zyou!
Thanks for your comment. Yes you should start a Instagram page. I’ll write a post soon on “How to promote your blog on Instagram?”
Thanks. Enjoyed post
Hi KJ,
Thanks for your comment. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
Great & thanks..
These are really handy thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Chloe for your comment!
This is very helpful information, and you broke it down nicely. I need to start digging into this more, but in the 3 months of having a blog I have already started learning so much and this definitely helps!
Hi Heather,
Thanks for your comment. Love to know that this post helps you. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
always I used to read smaller posts that as well clear their motive, and that is also happening with this post which I am reading now.
Hi, @188bet thanks for letting me know your interest.You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
Since the admin of this site is working, no question very rapidly it will be famous, due to its feature contents.
Thanks for showing your love. I’m working on this blog. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
Yes, these are codes every blogger should know. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Cyn, thanks for your sweet comment. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
Good info. Lucky me I found your site by accident (StumbleUpon).
I have saved it for later!
Thanks for showing so much love.You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
I knew a lot of this code but refreshed a few things! Every blogger should definitely have at least this level of HTML understanding!
Love to know that my post helps you in revising these basic HTML tags. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
I’m super lucky that my husband is a coder and is able to help me with all this tech side of blogging. At least now I might have an idea of what he is talking about.
Hey Kate, thanks for your comment.You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
I am glad for people like you who understand the html. It can get confusing for me and I always to look things up.
Hi Tara, thanks for your comment. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
Sweet blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News.
Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News?
I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there!
Thanks for letting me know that you’ve found my post on Yahoo news. I’ve not submitted it to Yahoo news. I think it’s due to better SEO. I’ll write a complete post on ”How to submit your blog in Yahoo news soon. Stay updated by subscribing to my blog here 🙂
These are all HTML codes I actually know, but I honestly wouldn’t know any of it, had it not been for having a blogspot blog back in the day. I loved learning code to be able to change the look and feel of that blog.
Hi Joanna, Love to know this post helps you in learning these basic HTML tags. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
I am terrible with HTML, but I really need to get better! I can do some basics, but it would be useful to improve this skill for sure.
Hi Jessica, HTML is a lot easier than you think. I suggest you to learn HTML through W3Schools. Also you can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
You are a very intelligent person!
Thanks for your appreciating words.You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
This is such a great post, you are so right these are definitely some of the basic HTML additions that every blogger out there should know.
Hi Sarah, thanks for your comment. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
This post was so informative, thank you. I’ve only been blogging for a short time but these types of post help me learn so much more. Very helpful!
Thanks for your comment. You can subscribe to my blog for latest tech tutorials here 🙂
This is getting bookmarked! This is gold! I dig it! Thanks for sharing the HtML tips!
Nice post very informative ,all the basics
a blogger should know, Great work!!
This is extremely helpful. I rarely ever go into the coding but it’s really good to know.
This is a great summary! I rarely play with HTML code but should really nail these basics down.
I actually took an html class in college. It was great and the basics make things so much easier!
I used to be amazing at HTML and not going to lie I definitely forgot a lot of it. I need to go back and study some of these because they are important.
I recommend you to get online tutorials from W3Schools. It really helps!
Also, you can subscribe to my blog for latest tutorials on blog editing & HTML.
Oh, good mentions here. I know some of the basics to HTML, but one or two of these didn’t cross my mind. Thank you for the info.
Great info for HTML for beginners. I learn HTML when i was 13 so I do know the basic and I would love to know more coding.
Love it! Im a CS major so this is relevant to me, and I do think everyone should know some of HTMl basics to work their blogs!
With WordPress, I’ve found that often I have to change my HTML use since it seems to have a mind of its own,
This is very complicated for me to understand all. But I’m sure this will help us bloggers for minor site supports.
this is really helpful. i used to be like a pro at html codes when myspace was around and ive definitely lost my touch. i need to rreteach myself so this post will definitely come in handy!
I never knew what any of these things meant until I took a webdesign class in college. It was really interesting to learn and make websites from scratch!
I think it is important that bloggers educate themselves about the inner workings of their blogs. I have learned a lot about html over the years.