I have an html page with heading and subheadings, I'm using Bootstrap v4 CSS.
I was using h3 for heading and h4 for subheading, but when rendered I found the sizes too similar so I swapped to using h2 and h4, not using h3 at all.
This works fine, but is it okay to do this semantically or is it incorrect?
Because I am using Bootstrap I dont particularly want to override the CSS for h3 to make it larger.
If you want semantically correct HTML, then it would be okay to keep the hierarchy; you should NOT use different heading tags just for styling purposes; if you are choosing an h4 over an h3 solely because of the sizes, then that would be semantically wrong; I'd just stick to change the sizes with my own CSS.
This article is really great to help with this: Why Use Semantic HTML
And quoting the same article:
h1–h6 - The heading tags can be used to make fonts bigger and bolder,
but if the text is not a heading, it should not be inside a heading
tag. Use the font-weight and font-size CSS properties instead if you
want to change the size or weight of specific text on your page
Also, since you are using Bootstrap, they provide classes that apply the styles of each heading to an element; so you can choose to style an h3 heading like a h1; this way you keep the looks you need while also the correct semantic approach:Headings
If you are not going to use h3 at all, on your page then yes, it should be all good semantically.
However, if you will be using an h3 somewhere else, I would just alter the heading sizes using CSS as there is not much of another choice, that would be considered semantically incorrect to skip a heading level then use it somewhere else.
Skipping heading levels is a poor practice from the perspective of information design, whether we are talking about web pages, books, journal articles, or about anything else. You can not only confuse screen readers but all readers when you don't follow a consistent, logical pattern with your heading structure.
Related
In terms of what Bootstrap provides, I don't see why anyone would use a p tag over a h tag for creating headers.
<h1>Bootstrap</h1>
<p class="h1">Bootstrap</p>
The Bootstrap documentation says the following regarding p tags:
.h1 through .h6 classes are also available, for when you want to match the font styling of a heading but cannot use the associated HTML element.
As someone who is new to frontend development, I don't understand the situation ...cannot use the associated HTML element, if anyone could explain.
Every tag has it's own meaning - semantic HTML. E.g. h1:
Use only one per page or view. It should concisely describe the overall purpose of the content.
But if you do not want to add any special meaning to your page part, just for it look like <h1>, then you use CSS to style elements like it.
Generally speaking, HTML labels (h1, p, a, etc) have semanting meaning. This is, they provide information on the element besides some basic styling, and this is key for accessibility (for example when using a screen reader).
Sometimes, you might want to have a text element with h1 aspect (font family, size...) but without such importance from a semantic point of view, that is why Bootstrap offers h1 as a class.
I hope this clarifies your question :)
These classes gives the same styling to the elements, but not their HTML properties, meaning that any scraper, parser, or search engine indexer won't see it as a header but just a normal paragraph text, which is sometimes the desired output when you need to highlight something to the user visually, but not mark it as a header for the indexers.
In terms of semantic HTML and SEO you should use heading tags (h1, h2, h3...), but, if you want to give, for example, H1 appearance to an element or without impact on the semantic, you should use heading classes
Instantaneous I'm working on developing a portfolio site. Hereby I strive to be as accurate as possible markup. I'm currently stuck in the use of heading tags. Are there any guidelines on the use of h1, h2, h3 tags etc? I find it difficult to determine what is and what is now an h1 h3 is an example.
I like to hear of your findings.
According to w3c:
The header element typically contains the headings for a section (an h1-h6 element or hgroup element), along with content such as introductory material or navigational aids for the section.
So the header can contain h1, etc. But not every h1 should be wrapped in a header. Only if it is related to the section.
The header tag is just semantics. It helps browsers (and developers) to understand your page better.
In fact it's always up to you how to use headers and how many of them you want to use. You should always test your site without CSS enabled and you will see if your markup is correct and articles titles / page titles/ block titles are visible enough
You can look also at some resources
http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/the-truth-about-multiple-h1-tags-in-the-html5-era--webdesign-16824
http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/headers/
http://accessibility.psu.edu/headingshtml
Another great resource that explains heading tags with reference to SEO:
https://www.thiscodeworks.com/html-heading-tags-less-than-h1-greater-than-to-less-than-h6-greater-than-html-basics-htmltags-seo/5e19e63f2f9933a537bcc72d
"Best practices for SEO and accessibility purposes when using heading tags is:
Use once or twice with the title of the website of page
Use for section headers inside the page. Good to have one every 200-400 words. But totally depends on the content and layout.
- Use as many as you want to further subsection and highlight key points in the text."
As we know if we take h1 tag or like that, It has its own style(some bold font weight and larger size). Also there are specific built in styles for p,center,h1,h2... so on. What is difference between styling div with css(same as h1) and using h1 tag for the same Or how html work for those tags.
Apart of the obvious, default browser styles for specific HTML tags, the difference is that in HTML5 tags mark the type of data that it holds. <author>, <aside>, <address> etc.(although nothing stops you from using different type of data for those tags)
Also search engines rely heavily on the data that each html tag holds, so the data in H1 is most certainly of higher value than in a simple div which is a kind of a generic block html element that usually doesn't have any styles applied.
styling div with css(same as h1) and using h1 tag(difference)
My Answer for the above line:
H1 is the Most Important Phrase or Sentence on Your Page
If you think of a Web page as an outline, the H1, H2, etc. heading tags serve to divide the page into sections. Your most important headline is your H1 headline. This generally indicates the topic for the entire Web page and is where most people look first when they're trying to figure out what the page is about. Since search engines first priority is to provide search results that people want, they try to use the same techniques to determine what a page is about. So content in the H1 tag will be considered most important and given a slightly higher rank than other content on the page...
Source: ABOUT.com (for more information)
What is difference between styling div with css(same as h1) and using
h1 tag for the same?
HTML is not just about the 'look and feel' of a web-page, it is also about semantics.
An h1 (or the new header tag) is expressing the 'headerness' of the content, while a div (even with appropriate style) does not.
You can read more on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_HTML
I am making a site about coding, and I want my page heading to look like an opening function, and then to close the function at the end...
<h1>function myCodingPage(){</h1>
... page content ...
<h1>}; // myCodingPage ends</h1>
However, I am aware that the spec says NO! I must only have one H1. This got me thinking, that I could just style the second one to match the defined style of the first, but what if I did not want to specify the style of either? Maybe I can just use H2 instead...
So that is my question to the forum... are there any positive/negative implications of using H2 and up, instead of H1 and up in terms of accessibility (do screen-readers expect an h1 for example), SEO, standards compliance, non-standards common practice (will h2 titles be recognized as page titles by any advanced browser bookmarking systems etc...) or anything I have not yet considered?
Edit: updated since comments
Two valide points made in the comments...
It seems that two H1 tags are allowed in the spec (although I suspect there is a good reason not to which I can't currently identify).
Also, the second use of H1 is a decorative element, and not a heading in it's own right, so should not be a heading element at all.
In light of this, I would like to know
Are there any issues with using multiple h1 tags?
How exactly should I markup the mostly decorative second half of the heading?
Maybe I should have left this thread alone. But I guess other people may need to know this as well.
HTML is for meaning, not presentation. The h1 tag is meant to be the primary heading. You really can't have 2 "main" headings competing for attention, the same way you can't truly have two "best" friends.
Proper usage would be to use an h2, as it is a secondary heading. CSS could easily be changed to make the properties of the h1 and h2 the same, if necessary.
All HTML elements have a purpose. Clean, correct coding involves using the elements in the scope that they were meant for. That's why we don't use tables for site layout, and why we use <strong> and <em> instead of <b> and <i>.
Use HTML for purpose and meaning, and use CSS for presentation and styling.
Is it mandatory to use H2 after h1 if text is too small then can we use h4 after h1 . and is it accessible ?
Technically you can use any combination of those.
Semantically, it's wise to use the common order. And if the font size is too small, use CSS to change that.
With the tags h1-h6 you give a semantic meaning to a title. Where h1 is for the top level, h2 for a subdivision of h1, h3 for a subdivision of h2 etc.
You can change the appearance by setting CSS rules, which is great because now you can separate content from layout.
You should always structure the document correctly, so yes it should be h2 after h1 - if the text is the wrong size, you should use CSS to style the headings to your taste.
H1 is usally used for primary headers, h2 for subheaders, h3 for subsubheaders etc. It's doesn't really matter what order you use them in. it's just a conventional document structure, it would illogical to have a sub header, then a primary header but it's not enforced. Just style them in css for your liking.
Ideally you should stick to H1 then H2 and then use CSS to alter the styles of both to match what you want.
Think of HTML as describing the content and structure of your document (hence why it's preferred to stick to H1 then H2, because that indicates the structure of the headings), and then think of CSS as taking that structure and formatting it according to some layout rules, so the CSS defines how big and what colour your want all your H1s and H2s to be.
(Technically there is nothing stopping your from mixing up the order and doing whatever you want though)
Yes, you can skip levels, and most screen readers won't care.
It is often better to use CSS, though.
No, they're just tags. The heirarchy is implied rather than defined or enforced so you can use them in any order you please.
But for readability and neatness you're better of redefining them with CSS if you don't like the sizes rather than just using H3 for a main heading and ignoring H1 and H2. Aside from anything else it could impact Search Engine Optimisation (which considers H1 significant, though I'm not sure about H2 and H3).
h1 and h2's are pretty vital to SEO, using one h1 and mutiple h2's after is the logical thing to do.