Does it matter what text you wrap in an H1 tag?
-
Typically H1 tags are reserved for page headings, i.e. on a blog post the blog post title is very often the pages H1, or top-level heading as the W3C puts it.
On the SEOmoz home page they currently have "SEO Software." as their H1 tag, which seems perfectly reasonable and to me fits the W3C criteria.
However, what if the primary keyword for SEOmoz was "seo community" so they decided to wrap just those two words in the sentence that follows on their home page and maintain the existing style of the words "seo community" with CSS. (see attachment)
Are there any arguments against doing that?
Would Google be able to detect this? If so, would Google care?
I do believe the overall importance of the H1 tag has lessened to a degree, however I still believe they are valuable to an extent and would love to hear anyone's thoughts.
-
The same H1 rule goes for all other headers.
Headers are headers, mixing them in with the text content isn't very helpful in a user perspective.
A quick tip is to try to add questions to the h2 to keep the text SEO and user friendly.
So let's rephrase this into a h2 question:
Interested in commercial landscaping design?
We're the ones to call!
Call us at 1-866-236-7263 or contact us by email.
Hope I could help
Best,
Gustav
-
Great Q&A here - very clear and helpful. Now let me expand the question to H2 tags. If I keep the H1 as a proper heading on a page, but embed an H2 tag in a sentence is that considered acceptable SEO tactics?
Here's the example - as the 3rd paragraph of a page:
If you’re interested in
commercial landscaping design
, we’re the ones to call. Call us at 1-866-236-7263 or contact us by email.
What do you think?
-
Ok, now I understand what you meant
I agreee, In my opinion that's not a good way to use an H1 tag.
It would still work for rankings but I would also consider it as trying to cheat google.
It's always better to look at the sentence and restructure it and make it more of a selling copy text, for example:
The largest SEO community!
SEOmoz Pro combines campaign-based monitoring, actionable recommendations, and premium access to the web's largest seo community <a href="">- try it free for 30 days!</a>.
/ Gustav
-
Hey Gustav, thanks for the response. As a quick follow up for clarity on my end. Here's an example of what I was referring to using the SEOmoz home page as an example again. Would it be okay from your perspective to do the following?
SEOmoz Pro combines campaign-based monitoring, actionable recommendations, and premium access to the web's largest
SEO community
- try it free for 30 days.
Again, assuming that primary keyword for SEOmoz is "seo community." To me this is an effort to try and fool Google into thinking that SEO community is your top-level heading when in reality it's just a section of a sentence. Would you agree?
-
Hi! to specify: Yes, the words in the H1 tag matters
-
Hi!
The H1 is always important, I've tried several test with the h1 and title tag to see if the correlation still works and improve rankings. In my experience it does.
As long as you don't use css to modify the h1 so that another element of the text below is actually bigger or resemble an h1 it should be fine. Don't try to fool Google by changing the appeareance of the h1 to much(use common sense), remember you can always use an H2 tag below if it makes the content better.
Remember the H1 should always be unique for the page and should not be the same on several pages.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I seem to have about 10 ### tags in the sidebar. Should they be removed?
A plugin inserts H3 tags in sidebar 'read more' type links. They are tangentially related to the content (as the whole site is on ice hockey), but not directly related. Will Google think these are part of the content and be a little confused on the subject matter or is it smart enough to realize this is Sidebar material? Do I need to take action/be concerned? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | BrvceTHW0 -
WP tag ranking higher than desired page
I have a WordPress site and my question is regarding one of the KW I am targeting. I have tagged some of my blog posts with this KW which has successfully placed me on page 1 of Google for the KW. However the page displays all of the blog posts in the summarised format. The page appears as mysite.com/tag/KW This isn’t too bad as it brings the customer to my site however I have a much preferred page on my site that is optimized for this kw and I would rather them land on this. This is a page as opposed to a post therefore there are no tags attached to it (i guess you knew that). It isn’t a very difficult keyword to rank for as it’s a service in a local area. If I remove the blog tags is there a chance that Google will place my preferred optimised page higher? Is Google saying that the tag page is a better match for the browser therefore will not rank the preferred page? Hope I’m making sense. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cjkimber0 -
My company's product is referred to by two different names (SVN and Subversion). When cleaning up our Title tags, is it OK to use either name to keep the title tags around 70 characters?
I am cleaning up title tags that are too long or not correct. In our title tag we reference our product (a version of OSS source code). This product is often referred to as both SVN or Subversion. When writing Title tags is it OK to use one or the other depending on the length of the Title Tag? For instance: Contact Us | Free SVN & Git Hosting | Bug & Issue tracking | CloudForge vs **About CloudForge | Free Subversion & Git Hosting | Bug Tracking ** | |
On-Page Optimization | | CollabNet0 -
Noindex, nofollow tags
Hi, I have changed my tags to noindex,nofollow with Yoast. But still, seomoz software showing me warnings and errors for those pages. Also did the same for archive pages example.com/page-2/ and facing the same problems. I need to clear as much errors as I can in the software so I can see the real remaining errors in the website. Help will be highly appreciated. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Xasir0 -
Is it possible to add language tag on a single foreign language page?
I have some pages are written in foreign language, is it possible to just add the language tag on this single page to enable it to target specific audience? eg, if I have a page written in German, how do I add the language tag to help it get a better rank in google.de? Thank you Mozzers
On-Page Optimization | | JonnyGreenwood0 -
Is there a set length / restriction on ALT tag content?
Something in which is an essential part of any site but I cant for the life of me remember if there is a set / recommended limit to the size if should be or is restricted to.
On-Page Optimization | | SamPenno0 -
Finding unique title tags for each media coverage page
We have multiple pages for our media coverage, and each page has the same title tag. I know it's important to have unique title tags, but if each page is just a listing of your media coverage (page 1 of 9, page 2 of 9, etc) then how do you create unique title tags for each media coverage page?
On-Page Optimization | | msakakibara0 -
Title tag - shorter = better?
Is it true that the shorter the Title tag is the more powerful the keywords in it are?
On-Page Optimization | | echo1
I know that the main keywords have to be at the beginning of the title but, having more words in your Title could dilute the effectiveness of your main keywords? Ex: Dallas limo service | Private car by SelectLimousine. Could the fact that I have a second part of my title affect the first part by diluting its value? I would like to rank first for Dallas car service but also for Dallas car service and Dallas limousine service. Is this good practice?0