HTML is not a programming language but rather a mark-up language used to describe web pages. It stands for Hyper Text Mark-Up Language. It allows for the creation of an HTML document, also called a web page. HTML uses “tags” to define the elements of the page such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes, et cetera. The design elements of hard-coded HTML web pages are often defined and controlled using CSS or cascading style sheets.
There are a number of scripting languages and multimedia platforms that can be used to affect the behavior of the HTML page. For example, Flash is a multimedia platform that contains ActionScript, an object-oriented scripting language. It is often used to add interactivity and video to web pages and to create animation of text, drawings and images. Scripting languages like JavaScript may be used, for example, to set and read cookies that identify and record which elements of a web page a user interacted with, or to display advertisements on a web page.
Search engine optimization of HTML web pages ensures that no elements of the page are broken or unclear and that the right content is placed in the page defining “tags”. The idea is to prepare each web page intended for public view to be found, accessed, scanned, and indexed by the search engines. The understanding is that you are most likely to reach the majority of your target audience groups if your web pages rank within the top three pages of the search engine results for the search terms you have optimized for. Ideally you want your web pages to rank within the top three listings on page one of the search engine results page.
