tags information

image: Miguel Á. Padriñán | Pexels.com

When you are writing a comment, you will see a message that reads:
"You can use some html tags, such as <a>, <b>, <i> " For a long time, I did not know what these tags meant. So, for those who still do not know, here is an explanation. This applies to posting as well, when you write your post in the Edit Html mode instead of the Compose mode. [Blue buttons at top right of the post box area].

These are html tags. Html is an anachronism for Hyper Text Markup Language. This is the string of symbols that the search bots and other web bots/spiders read to interpret an internet page. There are other languages, but since Blogger uses this one, we will stick to that for this discussion. Lets begin with the popular tag of <a>. This forms a link.

We, as humans, usually prefer to view an internet or "hard copy" page that includes images. That is human nature; it explains why we usually turn to the internet and gossip magazines for reading pleasure. A scholarly article would usually provide a better researched reading, but scholarly articles/journals typically do not include images. A lot of text seems to go on and on forever. So, we get bored and stop reading or snooze, ha.


The search bots and spiders do not read (crawl) images but rather languages or symbols such as html. Another quick tip: you can add description keywords to your images so they will have a chance of being crawled. When you post an image, go to Edit Html and the very first of the post has the <a href= lists the url of the image, replace it with your blog's http:// address or the address the image links to. This will help. Keywords are still important, but nowadays the spiders are really looking for topic relevancy: does the site's text reflect the url name? One thing we bloggers get told a lot is that we have too many images. Well, maybe so, but blogging is a bit different than websites in that a blog is like an old-timey paper newsletter. The big difference is our blogs are up to date real-time and don't have to wait for printing presses.

The <b></b> tag simply means that whatever text is between them will be in bold print. A link or just regular text can be bold. The <i></i> makes the text between them in italics. This can be useful as well. Italic text can also be bold. <u></u> will underline the text between them. This can also be coupled with bold and italics. With any of them, be sure to close the tag with the appropriate </a>, </b>, </i> and </u> or the html code will be broken and will not publish. If you have a lot of space between your post text and/or images, look in the Edit Html mode and you may see a string of code that reads: & This creates spacing. Simply delete that code carefully and preview. The spacing should be gone now. Woo! What a long post! Thank you for being patient. I hope some of this will help you all with your blogging.