Matt West
writes on February 18, 2014
HTML5 has seen the introduction of a number of sectioning elements that can be used to mark up your web pages. Using these elements gives more semantic meaning to your pages, allowing computer programs to better understand your content.
In this post you’ll learn how to use these sectioning elements in your own web sites. I’ll be explaining when you should use certain elements over others, as well as when it’s best to stick to a good old <div>.
Check out all our HTML courses at Treehouse.
Lets get started.
Contents
The main Element
The <main> element should contain the main content for your web page. All of this content should be unique to the individual page, and should not appear elsewhere on the site. Any content that is repeated on multiple pages (logos, search boxes, footer links, etc.) should not be placed within the <main> element.
The example below uses a <main> element to represent the main content for the page
<body>
<header>
<div id="logo">Rocking Stone</div>
<nav>...</nav>
</header>
<main role="main">
<h1>Guitars</h1>
<p>The greatest guitars ever built.</p>
<article>
<h2>Gibson SG</h2>
<p>...</p>
</article>
<article>
<h2>Fender Telecaster</h2>
<p>...</p>
</article>
</main>
</body>Note: We’ve used the ARIA role=”main” attribute here is it indicates the significance of this element to programs that don’t yet support the <main> element (such as some screen readers).
You should only use one <main> element on a page, and it shouldn’t be placed within an <article>, <aside>, <header>, <footer>, or <nav> element.
The article Element
The <article> element should contain a piece of self-contained content that could be distributed outside the context of the page. This includes things like news articles, blog posts, or user comments.
<article>
<header>
<h1>Blog Post Title</h1>
<p>Posted 13th February 2014</p>
</header>
<p>
...
</p>
</article>You can nest <article> elements within one another. In this case it’s implied that the nested elements are related to the outer <article> element.
<article>
<header>
<h1>Blog Post Title</h1>
<p>Posted 13th February 2014</p>
</header>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<section>
<h2>Comments</h2>
<article>
<footer>
<p>Posted by: Joe Balochio</p>
</footer>
<p>This was a great article</p>
</article>
<article>
<footer>
<p>Posted by: Casey Brock</p>
</footer>
<p>How do you think this applies to the plan for world domination?</p>
</article>
</section>
</article>In this example we’ve used <article> elements to mark up the blog post, and each of the comments. This nesting pattern implies that the comments are related to the topic of the main blog post.
The section Element
The <section> element is used to represent a group of related content. This is similar to the purpose of an <article> element with the main difference being that the content within a <section> element doesn’t necessarily need to make sense out of the context of the page.
It’s advisable to use a heading element (<h1> – <h6>) to define the topic for the section.
Using this blog post as an example, you could have <section> elements that represent each of the individual parts within the post.
<article>
<h1>How to use HTML5 Sectioning Elements</h1>
<p>...</p>
<section>
<h2>The <main> Element</h2>
<p>...</p>
</section>
<section>
<h2>The <article> Element</h2>
<p>...</p>
</section>
<section>
<h2>The <section> Element</h2>
<p>...</p>
</section>
...
</article>Here we’ve used an <article> element to represent the post as a whole, and then multiple <section> elements to represent each of the sub-topics discussed in the post.
If you just need to group content together for styling purposes you should use a <div> element rather than a <section>.
The <nav> element is used to mark up a collection of links to external pages or sections within the current page. As well as being used for the main website navigation, the <nav> element is also a good fit for things like a table of contents, or a blogroll.
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="#chapter-one">Chapter One</a>
<li><a href="#chapter-two">Chapter Two</a>
<li><a href="#chapter-three">Chapter Three</a>
</ul>
</nav>Marking up your links within a list will often make your navigation easier to use, however this is not a requirement when using a <nav> element.
The aside Element
The <aside> element is used to represent content that is tangibly related to the content surrounding it, but could be considered separate. This includes things like sidebars (like those you might find in a book), groups of <nav> elements, figures and pull quotes.
<article>
<header>
<h1>Google Buys Nest</h1>
<p>Posted at 11:34am 13th January 2014</p>
</header>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<aside>
<h1>Google (GOOG)</h1>
<p>Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company...</p>
</aside>
</article>In this example we’ve used an <aside> element to mark up information about Google within a news article. The company information in the <aside> could be considered useful by the reader but it’s not directly related to the news story.
The header Element
The <header> element is used to represent the introductory content to an article or web page. This will usually contain a heading element as well as some metadata that’s relevant to the content, such as the post date of a news article for example. It could also contain a table of contents (within a <nav> element) for a longer document.
A <header> element will be associated with the nearest sectioning element, usually it’s direct parent in the page structure.
<header>
<h1>Google buys Nest</h1>
<p>Posted at 11:34am 13th January 2014</p>
</header>In this example the <header> element contains the title and posted date for a news article.
The <footer> element is used to represent information about a section such as the author, copyright information, or links to related web pages.
<footer>
Copyright Matt West 2014
</footer>As with <header>, the <footer> element is associated with the nearest sectioning element.
The address Element
The <address> element is one of the most commonly misunderstood HTML elements. This element is not for marking up postal address, but rather for representing the contact information for an article or web page. This could be a link to the author’s website or their email address.
<address>
Contact <a href="mailto:matt@example.com">Matt West</a>
</address>This element is often used within the <footer> for an <article>.
<article>
<header>
<h1>Google buys Nest</h1>
<p>Posted at 11:34am 13th January 2014</p>
</header>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<footer>
<address>
By <a href="mailto:matt@example.com">Matt West</a>
</address>
<p>Copyright Matt West 2014</p>
</footer>
</article>Final Thoughts on the Sectioning Elements
In this post you’ve learned how to use the HTML5 sectioning elements when marking up your web pages. Using these elements has a number of benefits. One of the biggest being that it gives certain areas of your page more semantic meaning, allowing computer programs to identify key elements like the main content and page navigation. This information is extremely useful to applications like screen readers.
Note: Not all screen readers have support for these semantic elements yet. You may want to continue using ARIA roles just to be safe.
Using these sectioning elements also has the benefit of making developers think more about the structure of their web pages. Selecting which element to use for a piece of content isn’t always obvious, but it raises important questions about the purpose of that content, and whether it belongs on the page at all. This is an example of where web standards are not only helping to improve the quality of our markup, but the quality of our web pages as a whole.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the HTML5 sectioning elements. Share your views in the comments below.
Hey, Matt!
Thanks for the very thorough article. I’ve never even used the likes of address before.
My question is simple – are these (somewhat complex, might I add) semantics in any way more useful from a SEO standpoint than simple div’s? I’ve done some checking (not creepy stuff, just using things like http://webanalysis.tools/ , so don’t judge) and few of my competitors seem to use and elements. Do you think that using this more complex and specific approach could potentially help with ranking?
Thanks again,
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
I’m not an SEO expert, so can’t comment on any specific SEO benefits from using these tags.
In general, it’s better to always use the appropriate tags so that you’re giving semantic meaning to your content. In theory, this will make it easier for programs like search engine crawlers to understand your page. Whether this will actually impact your ranking is beyond my area of expertise.
Sorry that I can’t be more help.
Stick with what you’re doing, or find another and marketing strategy to replace the classified ad
strategy. There are many news blog logo networks around where you can submit you and market
your blog. This is a gesture of excellent will hoping that other
bloggers will do the identical.
Great post! Very clear. (nice clean design, too.) Cheers!
Very informative article!
I didn’t realise and tags could be repeated so many times throughout the HTML document. I had been using it to define the structure of the page as opposed to what you’re explaining.
Also, I had been using the tags to define actual sections of the page. I will take your advice and use s instead.
I feel like such a newbie again after reading this.
Great thing! thanks for sharing about HTML 5, its usefull 🙂
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I’d suggest to always wrap navigation links with an list for the accessibility purposes. For example blind people are happy to have a control over the navigation which is easier with a list.
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Elements – Treehouse Blog < Loved it!
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Well it removed the tag I referenced but it is the main tag. It’s not supported by IE.
While I’m sure this article has its merits I couldn’t get past the first line as the tag is not support by IE at all and is asking for trouble when coding a site.
I have seen an ever increasing amount of sites and especially theme devs using the section element incorrectly, I would say if your not sure on if you should use it on a particular area of your markup, then possibly leave it out.
In respect the the multiple h1 tag discussion in the comments, from an seo prospective its advisible to have one per page and in terms of markup, as mentioned by Adrian, you should you a nested heading structure that is relevant to the flow of the document.
Fantastic article!
I always thought you can only wrap article in a section tag and not the other way round.
Good explanations!
Thanks for this article. One thing I struggle with is determining when the section element is appropriate. Can you elaborate more on how to determine when this element makes sense? Is there a real basic question to ask yourself to help determine when to use it?
Hi Tom,
Sections should be used if you need to group together a bunch of elements that are related but don’t fit the requirements for an article element (i.e. they wouldn’t necessarily make sense when taken out of the context of the page).
For example if you look at this page from the Treehouse website, each of the page sections (defined by the change in background color) could have been marked up using section elements.
http://teamtreehouse.com/features
Image: http://cl.ly/image/3A1a282z1o0O
Does that help at all?
Thx for some great reading! I have a question, do you use any framework like foundation or bootstrap. And if so, how would you (or soneone else hrre) approach a semantic structure. Since we have to use row classes and column classes for ex. I have tried to outline the content with for ex. and then child the framework “divs” bit i feel uncomfortable using just that, divs… Greetings.
Sry for typos (phone) and i outline them with for ex. The section element. (Didnt include it when i used tags around it in my post)
Hi,
great article, gave me some ideas how to work with these elements. I have a question though, in a single page website, would you recommend to use for the page sections like for example the “hero section” and “our work” and “clients quotes” and so on, the section element or div elements or some other ? This is still not clear for me, I currently use the section element which made the most sense for me but maybe is not correct.
thanks.
Hi Bogdan,
Using section elements for those kinds of page sections is just fine 🙂
Thanks for reading!
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Wow, thank you for this article. Very helpful!
Great article
I mostly used divs, and now I’m going to edit a huge part of my site, towards HTML5 sectioning.
thank you for help
Your website offered us with useful details to work with. Each & every guidelines of your publish are amazing. Thanks a lot for discussing. Keep writing a weblog.
Thanks for the post Matt, really throws some light.
But still I’d ask a question about SEO-benefits of using multiple H1 tags on the page? I guess it’s another HTML5 issue out there. This article http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/the-truth-about-multiple-h1-tags-in-the-html5-era–webdesign-16824 is remarkable, but the commenters point out that we shouldn’t use multiple H1 tags.
What do you think about it?
Hi Alex!
Matt Cutts did a video on using multiple H1s, it’s a little old now but could still be useful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM
Edited: Removed inaccurate information about the HTML5 page outline algorithms relationship with SEO.
Wow, some guys pointed out that search engines still do not use HTML5 Outline algorithm for sake of backward compatibility. Thanks for the video, though! 😀
The HTML5 Document Outline is supported by no browsers and should just be ignored. One of the HTML5 editors has called it a “dangerous fiction” (http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2013/10/html5-document-outline/), it imparts no SEO benefits (at least none that anybody can cite), and the W3C is changing the language about using multiple H1s as a result of all the recent misunderstandings (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2014Jan/0004.html).
In the interests of accessibility and a non-flat document structure, just use traditional nesting and avoid H1s in every section (use a heading level appropriate to its nesting position).
I see you edited your comment to remove the reference to SEO and the HTML5 Document Outline. I also see you removed my comment altogether. Any reason why? Can you put it back?
Hi Adrian,
Yep, didn’t want people to read my comment and get the wrong info.
I didn’t remove your comment, it was flagged for moderation as it contained links. I’ve approved it so it should be live now.
Thanks for the correction btw 🙂
Matt,
Gotcha. My bad. I didn’t see any note when I posted it (I may have not been looking very hard). Thanks!
Great article. I especially didn’t know <address> was meant to be used for _contextual_ contact information. As the name implied, I thought it was for _physical_ addresses. And that was a bit confusing, because I also saw it used for author contact information and made a false assumption that it was not semantic. I have to remember that HTML5 elements aren’t so literal. 😛
Woah this kind of website is fantastic everyone loves looking through the articles you write. Continue to be within the great! You are aware of, many people are seeking spherical because of this facts, you can guide these tremendously.
As you see, my ‘section’ tags are not in my comments 🙁
The comments system on this blog will strip out any HTML for security reasons. If you want to display HTML code you need to escape the tag syntax. See: http://www.htmlescape.net/htmlescape_tool.html
🙂
Hey, It is a good article cheers.
Although the article is very helpful, there is problem that I can see. I don’t understand how you type element as a word. If you start element, HTML renders it and creates a a section block. It does not wait to close tag like .
Could you explain me how you handle it?
Cheers.