The structure of headings (titles and subheadings) on your site’s pages is one of the most important aspects of on-page SEO. It defines which parts of your content are important and how they are connected to each other. Because they have different purposes, pages, posts, and taxonomy files (categories and tags for example) need different heading structures. In this post we will take a look at headings and how to apply them to different pages.
Index
Headings and SEO
Many believe that their success in SEO comes exclusively from the use of keywords in their headings. This is not entirely true, but without a doubt keywords should be present in your sub-headings. If you want to rank for a certain keyword, you must write about it. It makes no sense to use a keyword in a sub-heading and not address the subject in the content, you will be deceiving your reader (and trying to deceive the search engine).
Also read: The definitive guide to SEO copywriting
Read also: 10 Important items for on-page SEO
There are other factors such as correctly tagging content in the schema.org standards that will probably help you rank better, possibly even more than the use of headings, however, the use of headings will greatly help your reader to read and understand your content. In case there was any doubt up to this point, yes, Google does take headings into consideration in its algorithm:
“We do use H tags to understand the structure of the text on a page better”.
John Mueller, Google
“Google looks at a lot of different things we look at over 200 things PageRank is just one of them whenever we rank things other things we use things in the title things in the URL even you know things that are like really highlighted like h1 tags and stuff like that.”
Matt Cutts, Google
Headings and text structure
A text without headings and sub-headings is difficult to read. The headings are anchor points easily scanned by the reader. People tend to scan the headings of a text to understand the subject matter, as do search engines. In essence, headings should tell the reader what that section or paragraph of the content they are reading is about.
Reading on a screen is difficult, unlike reading printed material. People are easily distracted by reading on a screen. Headings serve to keep the reader connected to the reading flow of the message you are trying to convey.
It is very important to use headings that are informative for the reader. Many feel that they must use big calls or seductive text in their headlines. They can work, but the main focus of a heading should be the content, and its main goal is to improve the readability of the text.
Also read: The definitive guide to content SEO
Basic principles of using headings
Keep these principles in mind before you start tinkering with the headings structure of your site:
- The most important heading on a page should be an H1;
- Usually there is only one H1 on each page;
- Sub-headings should be H2, H3, etc;
- Each heading should contain valuable keywords for your content;
- In long stretches of content the headings will help the reader scan the content for parts that are of interest to him.
Important: use as many headings (H1-H6) as you want, as long as your use makes sense. It is a hierarchical structure, so before you use an H3 you must use an H2. But you can go back to using an H2 after using an H3.
There are some tools that can extract headings from the page. If you make this post you will find it:
- [h1] Headings and SEO
- [h2] Headings and SEO
- [h2] Headings and text structure
- [h2] Basic principles of using headings
- [h2] Headings for your homepage
- [h2] Headings for posts and pages
- [h2] Headings for category pages, tags and other taxonomies
- [h2] Headings and HTML5
- [h3] How many H1 tags should I have on my pages?
- [h2] What to avoid when using headings?
- [h2] Conclusion: rethink your headings
You can also use H4, H5 and H6 if you want, as long as it makes sense and you make sure to use an H4 before an H5 and an H5 before an H6. I usually use only H2 and H3, in most cases it is enough to properly structure my content.
Headings for your homepage
Apart from some specific cases that we can discuss in the comments, such as one page sites (errggg!), your home should probably have a structure like this:
H1: Name of the site/blog.
H2: Your catchphrases, if they have relevant keywords; otherwise, use for your recent posts.
H3: Your recent posts, or, if these are already H2, can be used for other posts.
H4: Related content in your sidebar, such as the title of a widget like “Recent Posts” or “About SEO”.
H5: Unrelated content in your sidebar, footer, etc.
As you noticed, I highlighted “related” and not “related” content. There is no SEO gain in using an H3 for “Advertising” or “Sponsors”. On the other hand, having an H4 saying “About this SEO blog” can be helpful, if “SEO blog” is the term you want to rank for.
Headings for posts and pages
A little easier than home:
H1: Title of the post or page.
H2’s and H3’s: subtitles and sub-sub-titles.
H4: Title of your site/blog and related widgets.
H5: Unrelated content in the sidebar, footer, etc.
Is it true? It makes perfect sense, right? The most important, the page title, is marked with H1, then the subheadings and sub-subheadings, H2 and H3 respectively, and so on. The title of your site/blog is still important. If your post is good and becomes relevant, people may search for “Headings Dilmar Ames” for example.
Headings for category pages, tags and other taxonomies
If you want to rank your category and tag pages, giving them meaningful content and aiming to attract the reader’s attention, the structure will be similar to the home page headings structure:
H1: Category/tag name.
H2: Post titles.
H3: Name of the site/blog.
H4: Related content in your sidebar, such as the title of a “Recent Posts” or “About” widget.
H5: Unrelated content in your sidebar, footer, etc.
Headings and HTML5
The use of headings may not have changed much in recent years. However, with the advent of HTML5 (2014) some new tags were created for content markup. Tags like <section> and <article> have been introduced in order to give greater possibilities for structuring content.
These tags, by representing the opening of a new block in the content, also open the discussion about the use of multiple H1 headings on the same page for example. It is an extensive subject, so I suggest you read this article.
How many H1 tags should I have on my pages?
It seems logical to have only one H1 per page, usually the page title. In the case of this post it is “Headings and SEO”, which is what I am talking about here. I’m not talking about my consulting, so I don’t need another H1 right? See what Matt Cutts has to say about it:
The Yoast folks also respond to a question about not using the H1 tag:
And John Mueller talks about having more than one H1 tag per page, more common today:
What to avoid when using headings?
Something that gives me chills during my consultancies is when headings are used to style website elements like “Contact us 0123456789”, where they use H1 or H2 for the phone number. Which one is it? If you are a designer or developer you can do better than that. Add a CSS class to do this styling and save the headings for the relevant content.
Another thing that happens frequently is the use of a heading in an entire paragraph. Creators of sales pages and landing pages love to do this. Avoid this. H’s should be used to mark content that is relevant and contains keywords for the visitor and searcher. Again, use CSS classes for styling and keep your headings relevant.
Conclusion: rethink your headings
Using headings correctly can help your visitor, increases the chances of your article being read, improves the accessibility of your content, and can (without a doubt) contribute to your site’s SEO. If you don’t already have them in your content, run and take advantage of this opportunity! If you already have headings on your site, review them to see if you are using them properly. Tell me, how are you using headings on your site?
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