Most people get amped up when it comes to writing their blogs. For those who have never done it before they may picture a process involving simply typing up pages of content straight to the web. However, what most come to find out fast is that a little bit of HTML knowledge can go a long way and make the blogging process so much easier. Understanding this basic HTML code will help your blogging skills get taken to the next level by being able to format content in various ways (and you don’t have to worry about bothering your web designer anymore!):
Tags
When writing code, there should always be an opening and closing tag. The opening tag has a left angle bracket followed by a character and closed with a right angle bracket. A closing tag has the exact same structure except there is an added forward slash just before the character. See below for example:
<p> This is my first sentence in a paragraph. </p>
Characters
How do you know which characters to add to your tags? Well, in the case of writing blogs, some good formatting characters to memorize include:
<h1> This is a heading tag. Use heading tags to keep your content organized and to create a textual hierarchy. There are usually six heading options total (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6). </h1>
<br> This is a break tag. A break tag is code that will put a space between one line and the next (it’s like pressing your Enter key). </br>
<p> This is your paragraph tag. Create paragraphs within the body of your page using this tag. </p>
<b> Bold is another tag that could come in handy when writing a blog. Simply place this tag around any single word or phrase in order to bold the font. <b> <i> Italic is a formatting tag that will italicize any word or phrase. </i>
<u> Underline tags can be used to underline any text. </u>
Lists
People love lists. They are short, brief, and easy to skim. Using them in your blog will help clean up your data and provide a new way to layout your content.
Unordered Lists
To create a simple bulleted list, use <li> </li> opening and closing tags surrounded by <ul> </ul> opening and closing tags as shown below:
<ul>
<li>Apples</li>
<li>Orange Juice</li>
<li>Milk</li>
</ul>
What you see:
- Apples
- Orange Juice
- Milk
Ordered Lists
Similar to unordered lists, ordered lists use numbers in place of bullet points. To create one use <li></li> opening and closing tags surrounded by <ol></ol> opening and closing tags as shown below:
<ol>
<li>Apples</li>
<li>Orange Juice</li>
<li>Milk</li>
</ol>
What you see:
- Apples
- Orange Juice
- Milk
Keep your content engaging for your audience and use these coding tips to create a hierarchy with headers, layout lists of information, and emphasize text in various ways. Need an experienced writing team to create strategically engaging blogs for you on a weekly or monthly basis? Contact Informatics today!
