Attributes

An attribute is a piece of code attached to a tag which supplies additional information:

class="some-class">This is a div element

This is an attribute.

So, when people say ‘I’ve used alt tags’, they haven’t; they’ve used alt attributes.

When people say ‘Don’t use tables, use div tags.’ they mean use div elements.

When people say ‘mark important text up in a strong tag’ they mean mark important text up in a strong element (made up of two strong tags).

|<--             --element--            -->|
Element content

This is probably really very basic for the majority of you, so apologies, but it really winds me up when I see developers making this mistake. Still.