HTML is a markup language that forms the basis of most webpages.

It is arguably one of the most fundamental parts of technical SEO.

Using HTML elements, SEO professionals are able to communicate information about the page to users and search bots.

This can help to clarify the importance, nature, and order of content on a page, as well as its relationship to other webpages.

The Difference Between Tags & Attributes

To understand the difference between tags and attributes we need to make sure we’ve got our terminology right.

Many people will use the phrase “tag” and “attribute” interchangeably, but let’s be precise.

The format of the below HTML element is in three parts:

• The opening tag.
• The content specific to that tag,.
• The closing tag.

For example:

Welcome to my page about kittens

• “
  

  ” opens the tag.

• “Welcome to my page about kittens” is the content of the tag.
• “

  ” closes the tag.

This element is a header and would be used as a visible title on a webpage to introduce the content about kittens.

Tags

Tags must have the opening and closing elements in order for the tag to work.

There are also empty elements, like
, which do not have any content or end tag to them.

Attributes

Attributes are added to elements to modify them. They sit within the element, such as:

3 Basic HTML tags

In order to make a useful webpage, there are a few key tags that are needed.

The tag is the very first tag on a webpage.

It essentially introduces the page as being a webpage.

The tag introduces the first section of the page.

This is where information about the page, that won’t be displayed on the page, is contained.

It’s important to know about the as this is where some of the crucial tags for SEO need to be housed.

The body tag contains the information on the page that your visitors will see.

Here is where your copy, images, and videos will go.

The body will also house some of the other HTML tags we’ll talk about later.

Common Tags for SEO & the Attributes Used in Them

The tag sits within the of the page.

It can contain attributes that describe information about the webpage that won’t actually be seen in the content of the page.

This meta tag is often called “metadata” because of the attributes that are used with it that control things like the “meta description” and the no-longer-used “meta keywords.”

Name Attribute

The name attribute is used with the tag.

It is essentially a way of specifying to any bots which may visit the page if the following information applies to them or not.

For example, including means that all bots should take notice of the “noindex” directive.

You will often hear this called the “meta robots tag.”

If the following were used only Google’s bot would need to take notice of the “noindex” directive.

This is a good way of giving commands to some search bots that are not needed for all.

Noindex Attribute

The “noindex” attribute is one commonly used in SEO.

You will often hear it being called the “noindex tag” but more accurately it is an attribute of the tag.

It’s formulated:

This piece of code allows publishers to determine what content can be included in a search engine’s index.

By adding the “noindex” attribute, you are essentially telling a search engine it may not use this page within its index.

For example, this is useful if there is sensitive content you want to not be available from an organic search.

For instance, if you have areas on your site that should only be accessible to paid members, allowing this content into the search indices could make it accessible without logging in.

The “noindex” directive needs to be read to be followed. That is, the search bots need to be able to access the page to read the HTML code that contains the directive.

As such, be careful not to block the robots from accessing the page in the robots.txt.

Description Attribute

The description attribute, better known as the “meta description,” is used with the tag.

The content of this tag is used in the SERPs, underneath the content of the