I regularly see members on forums seeming to get confused with the H1 tags (and the other heading tags too).
Are heading tags important?
Yes, but only if used correctly. I've heard putting the keywords you're wishing to target in the H1 heading tag is worth 20 times as much as putting the keywords in the text alone. I have no evidence to say this value is fixed (I mean who comes up with these figures... some SEO says this and everyone latches on as they need a quantitive value just to hold onto and bring up at parties?)
From my own experience I believe you can use heading tags safely in the following way:
Ensure each heading is unique to each page.
I try to use different sentences for the H1 tag and the Title tag but BOTH will share the same keyword phrase being targeted.
Ensure the H1 heading tag uses the keywords you are targeting or at least is close to your targeted keyword phrase as possible (this is so your visitors can quickly identify the search term they used to find you is on your page... this helps keep them there as the result they got quickly appears far more relevant.)
I tend to only apply the H1 tag to text rather than on images or navigation bars. Keeps it simple for search engines.
Ensure you use sub headings every few paragraphs. It breaks up the page and increases white space if seperated correctly (use CSS to style this). For examples of how sub headings work, go buy a newspaper and study how the journalists use them to keep their readership reading the article).
For structuring heading tags in a HTML document I tend to favour this very simple method:
H1 tag - bold, slightly larger text using the main keyword phrase in context with your content not just plonked on the page. Your heading might be a short sentence based on the
AIDA marketing communication model
No more than one H1 tag per page.
The MAIN keyword is in your H1 tag, sub headings can make use of lesser keywords, stemming and synonyms.
In essence the content structure of my page would then look like:
H1
Content
H2
Content
H3
Content
H4
Content
H5
Content
H6
Content
However that might be viewed as rather simplistic by some so you could use this method to help categorise and sub categorise your content (though I think it could be easy to get wrong and mix up the incorrect Hx tags):
H1
Content
H2
Content
H3
Content
H3
Content
H2
Content
H4
Content
H4
Content
and so on down to H6.
Some might dispute the content of this blog on headings so let me know if you do, it can only provoke a positive discussion on heading tags to the benefit of visitor and readers of this blog.
My style seems to work though I carefully examine code on others site to check what they do. What I will say is that a simply structured page can help with rankings - in some cases taking my clients from very poor rankings to higher rankings, however it was not just a case of tweaking heading tags, rather this was just part of the SEO process.
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Labels: h1, h2, h3, heading tags, seo
