Four Basic HTML Tips for Article Writers

Article writers must not shy away from basic HTML. Basic HTML for writers helps them easily format their article and most importantly place live link to the website they produce with the correct anchor tag.

Formating Headers with HTML - Though not necessary in most cases, it doesn't hurt to know how headers are formatted. H1 is biggest header font, H2 is smaller and H4 is even smaller.

<H1> Heading H1 </H1> produces

Heading H1

<H4> Heading H4 </H4> produces

Heading H4

Bold, Italics and Underline - Authors need to emphasize a point with Bold, Italicized or Underlined words or phrases. Easily do it with simple HTML tags.

Formatting Bold

<B>Bold</B> produces

Bold

<I>Italicized</I> produces

Italicized

<U>Underlined</U> produces

Underlined

The <STRONG> tag produces results similar to <H4> tag.

Paragraph Breaks and Hard Line Breaks

HTML tag for paragraph break is <P> and for hard line break is <BR>

<P> Put the <P> tag at the beginning and end of a paragraph. It produces a paragraph that runs to different sentences </P> produces a new paragraph.

This is a paragraph. This paragraph is formatted with p tags. A p tag '<P>' at the beginning and the closing tag '</P>' at the end of this paragraph produces a paragraph.

<BR> Put br tags between sentences to produce hard line break without producing a new paragraph. </BR>

These are hard line breaks.

A hard line break is formatted with br tag.

A br tag '<BR>' at the beginning of a sentence or phrase and its closing tag '</BR> at the end of the sentence or phrase produces a new sentence without going to a new paragraph.

Hard line breaks have no vertical spacing.

Formatting Lists with UL and OL tags

For bulleted lists use '<UL>' tags and for numbered lists use '<OL>' tags. Also use <LI> tags to enclose individual items in a list.

Bulletted Lists

<UL>

<LI>Individual Item 1</LI>

<LI>Individual Item 2</LI>

<LI>Individual Item 3</LI>

</UL>

Produces

• Individual Item 1


• Individual Item 2


• Individual Item 3

Numbered Lists

<OL>

<LI>Individual Item 1</LI>

<LI>Individual Item 2</LI>

<LI>Individual Item 3</LI>

</OL>

Produces

1. Individual Item 1


2. Individual Item 2


3. Individual Item 3

Creating live links with HTML

Linking or properly using anchor text is a problem for some newbie authors. Here is a magic shot for you. The HTML tag for link is <A>, which can be used to a web page or an email address.

This is how you link to a web page

<a href="http://mywebsite.com/">http://mywebsite.com/</a> and

<a href="http://mywebsite.com/">Keyword Anchor Text</a>

Produce

http://mywebsite.com/ and

Keyword Anchor Text

You will need to use both of them in your article writing. Using keywords in anchor text looks nice and is beneficial in search engine ranking.

This is how you link to an email address

<a href="mailto:name@domain.com">name@domain.com</a> and

<a href=" mailto:name@domain.com">Send me an email</a>

Produce

name@domain.com and

Send me an email

Work with all the HTML tags in this tutorial for less than thirty minutes. You will change your status from newbie to professional in that much time. Happy formatting with HTML tags in your article writing efforts.