Should you use bold or strong, italic or emphasis? It's all in the context. Strong <strong> and emphasis <em> are logical tags, and are the correct tags to be using in html to add emphasis to content. They can be read differently by screen readers, and their purpose is just that. They make your site more understandable to the portion of your audience that isn't using a browsers to get your content. Italic <i> and bold <b> are font characteristics, and while commonly associated with Strong and Emphasis, don't have to be. They are visual characteristics of fonts, that don't always have anything to do with content. Some bloggers for instance write everything in bold and italic. Does this mean that all of their writing is important? If they were using strong and emphasis, a screen reader would think so. That is a case where bold and italic would be appropriate. They would visually change the text, but not add emphasis to the whole document. CSS could also be used in this situation to add bold and italic characteristics to the text, without the need for any tags at all. Using CSS for this purpose would also allow a writer to use the strong and emphasis tags in their text. Modification of the strong and emphasis tags through CSS would allow you to add emphasis to these tags, in text that was already bold and italic, though the use of color, font, or size changes. So the quick answer to "should you use bold or strong, italic or emphasis?" is yes. Use them all, but in the right context.
