HTML Headings

Imagine you are reading a book or a magazine. You'll notice that it has titles and sometimes subtitles before the start of a new section or chapter. These titles help you understand what the following section will be about and they organize the content in a way that's easy to follow.

HTML Headings: Like Chapter Titles in a Book

In the world of web development, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the standard language used to create and design web pages. Just like the titles and subtitles in a book, HTML uses headings to divide the content of web pages into sections and to give those sections a title.

Types of Headings

HTML has six different types of headings, simply named h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6. Think of h1 as the main title of a book - it’s the most important and usually the biggest. As the numbers increase, the importance and the size of the headings decrease, with h6 being the least important and smallest. It's like going from the main title of the book to chapter titles, and then even smaller section titles within those chapters.

How to Use Them

Using headings in HTML is quite straightforward. You just wrap the text you want to be a heading in the appropriate tag. For example, to create the main title of your webpage, you would use the h1 tag like this:

<h1>This Is the Main Title of the Page</h1>

And if you want to add a subsection under that main title, you could use a h2 tag:

<h2>This Is a Subtitle Under the Main Title</h2>

You can continue using the lower level headings (h3 to h6) as you add more sections and sub-sections to your page.

Why They Matter

Headings are not just about making your page look organized. They play a crucial role in web accessibility, helping screen readers understand the structure of the content, making it easier for people with visual impairments to navigate your page. Additionally, search engines use headings to index the structure and content of web pages, which can improve your site's SEO ranking and make it more likely to be found by people searching online.

So, think of headings as the organizational backbone of your web pages, guiding your readers through your content and helping your website stand out in the vast ocean that is the internet.