An important SEO tactic that should be used for on-site content formatting revolves around the proper usage of HTML Heading Tags.
Heading tags are important because page headings serve as a great indicator of what a given page is about. If you go to a page that has a heading of “SEO Basics: How to Use Heading Tags,” it is a good bet that the rest of the content will be directly related to SEO & Heading Tags. Thus, these tags provide relevancy in the eyes of the search engines.
Now that we’ve touched on why they are important, let’s switch gears to how to use headings properly (plus, what not to do!).
Proper Usage
- Use the <h1> tag for the main heading on the page.
Ex. <h1>SEO Basics: Heading Tags</h1> - Use the <h2> tag for subsequent sub-headings on the page.
Ex. <h2>SEO Heading Mistakes</h2> - Make sure that you use the current page’s keywords in the <h1> and <h2> tags.
Mistakes
- Don’t use images for headings — styled text has much more relevancy in the eyes of the search engines
- If you must use an image, make sure it has ALT text
- Don’t style your headings with the wrong HTML tags like this:
Ex. <span class=”heading”>This is my heading</span>- It is important that you use the correct HTML <h1> and <h2> tags or the search engines will not give you credit!
- Don’t try to stuff all of your keywords into headings
- Make sure the heading of the page is relevant to the page’s actual content
Sounds simple, right? Well, it is… which is why it is amazing that so many sites do this wrong and pass up the SEO benefits of using HTML Headings correctly.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Hi, thanks for the clear info, I’m researching this matter due to a question raised at work.
However I’m curious; on your blog template you have Chaotic Neutrality on every page, which doesn’t seem to tie up with the approach you recommend (i.e. putting the current post title in the ).
I’m normally putting the main site title into a and then the current page’s heading into a , as you’ve done here.
What are the pros/cons of the two approaches, and why have you chosen different for this blog than you recommend in the article?
July 14th, 2008 at 8:18 am
I’m re-posting because your form stripped various tags from my text. Perhaps you could make it automatically convert < and >? (I’m having to manually type < and > to get them into the text…):
Hi, thanks for the clear info, I’m researching this matter due to a question raised at work.
However I’m curious; on your blog template you have Chaotic Neutrality on every page, which doesn’t seem to tie up with the approach you recommend (i.e. putting the current post title in the <h1>).
I’m normally putting the main site title into a <h1> and then the current page’s heading into a <h2>, as you’ve done here. Then I use <h3> for further sub-headings. I believed this the most semantic usage of the heading tags (and therefore good for SEO, because search engines tend to respect semantics).
What are the pros/cons of the two approaches, and why have you chosen different for this blog than you recommend in the article?
July 14th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Missed one. It should read, “on your blog template you have <h1>Chaotic Neutrality</h1> on every page”.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Cannot emphasize how much search engines depend on h1, h2 tags and how important it is to do them right.
I also wonder if the order of the tags makes any difference i.e. if you have an h4 tag at the begging of the page and then an h3 before any h1 or h2 tags. If anyone has an answer please post.