HTML Elements: Tags, Nesting and Void Elements
Learn the difference between HTML tags and elements, how to nest elements correctly, and which common elements are void.
Tags and elements
An HTML element is made from tags and its content. Most elements have an opening tag and a closing tag around the content.
<p>This text is inside a paragraph element.</p>Here, <p> is the opening tag, the text is the content, and </p> is the closing tag.
Nest elements in the right order
Elements can contain other elements. Close the inner element before closing its parent.
<p>Read the <strong>important</strong> instructions.</p>Void elements
Void elements cannot contain child content and do not have closing tags. Common examples include <br>, <img>, <input> and <meta>.
Write explicit closing tags
Some elements have optional end tags under specific rules, but browsers may recover differently from malformed markup. Include the closing tags required for each element and nest them correctly.