<strong> is preferred when a word or phrase carries semantic importance, as it signals emphasis to both search engines and screen readers, improving accessibility and potentially influencing SEO context.
<b> can be used when you want bold text purely for stylistic purposes, without conveying semantic importance. However, modern best practices (as of 2025) recommend using CSS classes to apply bold styling instead.
If you intend to convey hierarchy or strong importance in your choice of HTML tags, you should use <strong>. <strong> conveys semantic meaning to screen readers and helps communicate importance to search engines through structured content.
If you intend merely to bold your text, use <b>. It has no direct impact for SEO or screen readers, because it is considered purely stylistic. Better yet, use <span> paired with an appropriate CSS class targeting the font-weight property.
font-weight property to manage styling in a consistent and scalable way, instead of using <b>.One example where you should choose <strong> over <b> would be when providing a reader with a warning, or informing them of something urgent or serious – like my note about using CSS classes above!
When you’re trying to emphasize text because it carries semantic importance, use <strong>.
For situations when you don’t want to draw special attention to text from a search engine or screen reader, you can use <b> instead. However, the use of <b> is discouraged, in favor of using CSS to apply bold font weights instead.