No empty formatting tags

ZMD009

Inline tags such as or must contain text; empty tags should be removed or given meaningful content.

<p>This is <strong>really</strong> important.</p>

<p>This is <strong></strong> important.</p>

When: Inline tags like or contain no text

Warning: <tag> tag should not be empty

Solution: Provide text content or remove the tag

Accessibility: Empty tags may be skipped or announced as blank by screen readers, disrupting content flow :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}.

SEO: Superfluous markup can dilute keyword signals and add irrelevant nodes to the DOM.

Goal: Eliminate empty inline tags to maintain semantic clarity.
What to do: Remove or populate any , , , or similar inline element that has no text.
Why: Empty inline tags add noise and may be rendered or announced incorrectly by assistive technologies.

Prevent meaningless markup that breaks screen-reader announcements and complicates styling.

Improved accessibility: screen readers ignore empty elements, but encountering them can disrupt navigation :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}.
Cleaner DOM: removing empty nodes reduces document size and simplifies CSS targeting :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}.
Better maintainability: developers and automated tools work with fewer irrelevant nodes.

ARIA practices: Ensure that inline elements conveying emphasis or strong importance wrap non-empty text.
HTML validation: Use linters (e.g., eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y) to flag empty inline tags.

Inline tags without content serve no semantic purpose and should either be removed or contain descriptive text.