 <p>HTML5 practices are all about semantics. If your bold text is bold because you want to place a strong emphasis on that text, you should use <a href="http://html5doctor.com/i-b-em-strong-element/" rel="nofollow"><code>&lt;strong&gt;</code></a>. If your highlighted text is highlighted because it's something you want to mark to draw attention to it, try the <a href="http://html5doctor.com/draw-attention-with-mark/" rel="nofollow"><code>&lt;mark&gt;</code></a> element. Style those elements as you wish.</p> <p><div class="snippet" data-lang="js" data-hide="false"> <div class="snippet-code"> <pre class="snippet-code-html lang-html prettyprint-override"><code>You will &lt;strong&gt;probably&lt;/strong&gt; find most browsers have quite sensible defaults for &lt;mark&gt;styling these elements&lt;/mark&gt;.</code></pre> </div> </div> </p>