Four different ways to create an HTML element in jQuery.

Method #1, the obvious method

The following may be enough much of the time:

var el = '<a href="http://example.com" class="link" id="link2">Testing</a>'

I sense that it is not really recommended by the community. There are better things.

Method #2, the better method

var $el = $('<a>')
  .addCLass('link')
  .attr('href', 'http://example.com')
  .attr('id', 'link2')
  .text('Testing')

Or, same thing but just easier to read:

var $el = $('<a>')
  .addCLass('link')
  .attr('href', 'http://example.com')
  .attr('id', 'link2')
  .text('Testing')

Method #3, the also very nice method

This was added in jQuery 1.4.

var $el = $('<a/>', {
  id: 'link2',
  class: 'link',
  href: 'http://example.com',
  title: 'This is a test',
  rel: 'external',
  text: 'Testing',
})

Method #4, the fastest method

This resonates positively in my programmer monkey brain. According to JsPerf the following method is also the fastest (if that's important to you).

var $e = $(document.createElement('div'))
 
$e.addClass('foo module')
  .attr('name', 'bob')
  .text('This div is created with jQuery and inserted here.')
  .insertAfter('#module')

Scorecard

document.createElement is clearly fastest of these methods. Here's a JsPerf scorecard:

Demo

A little demo never hurt anybody. Here is method #4 in action.