Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to peroperly use h1 , h2 and h3 tag on your website.
-
Is it better to have different h1 for each page or have the same h1 across the site. I am using h1 fin wordpress for
beside that I have 4 more h1 in the same page
how to properly use h2 and h3 can we have muliple h2 on a page.
what would be an ideal hx tag order be ?
h1
h2
h2- h3 h3If anyone can provide some answers
Many thanks
-
The above answers are spot on. Have one H1 per page, and that H1 should be unique and reflect the main heading/title.
I just wanted to add this great article by Bill Slawski - he goes into really great depth about their best usage and importance: http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/01/heading-elements-and-the-folly-of-seo-expert-ranking-lists/
-
I always preach to use your heading tags like you would when writing an article in Microsoft Word, and use 1 H1 tag per page.
Main Subject Line that Includes Keyword or Mission
Words that explain the information you are trying to cover, and your "mission statement". Include higher amounts of keywords within first paragraph while not stuffing. Should also contain some sort of conversion statement or button
Secondary Information or Second Viewpoint
Words that include keywords and viewpoint.
Last Heading Includes Summary or Closing Arguments
Include high points of what has been covered
CMS sites often render out header tags like mad, causing you to have multiple H1 tags on a page. To check to see if yours is doing this, use SEO Browser. IMO, you can have more than one H2, as you may have multiple high level topics to cover on one page. Keep in mind, you can always use CSS to make
text render as a heading tag, so your page doesn't look goofy. For example:
If your h1 css looks like:
.h1 {
font-size: 28px;
line-height: 29px;
font-weight: bold;
}then set up a div class:
.largeptext {
font-size: 28px;
line-height: 29px;
font-weight: bold;
}and they will look the same, but not render an additional h1 tag per page. Use this for your sidebar and page styling areas that also render h tags.
-
Should only have 1 H1 per page... ideally containing the target keyword. If this were a blog post, your H1 would be your article title.
H2 would be used more for subheadings, i.e. if you split your article up into sections with subheadings, each should be an H2
H3-H6 are just sub-sub headings, etc.
Overall, I believe H1 (and perhaps to an even lesser extent H2) has any SEO value - even though it is very minute since it's easily gamed.
-
H1 should be the main heading and reflect the landing page. It should also be unique to the site (in most cases). H2's should be subheadings, H3's sub-sub headings and so on.
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
-
No index for http version of website
Hi, I've had a message from Google search console to say the sitemap for the http version of my site is tagged as no index. As the https version is indexed, do I need to change the http version to be indexed as well? Do I need to keep the http version of the site in search console alongside the https version, or should I remove it? Advice appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | Robingoodlad0 -
Commas in title tags
Hello Guys, Thanks in advance for all who can help me with this I am helping a dinnerware company with their SEO. I told them to change their ambiguous title tags for more specific ones. However, they opted to create some title tags with 2 or three keywords separated by commas. I have attached an excel image illustrating their new title tags.. My question is, will this format be a problem with Google--penalties? The questionable title tags are highlighted in light orange. Thanks! lHH92
On-Page Optimization | | HectorCortes0 -
Should I use an acronym in my URL?
I know that Google understands various acronyms. Example: If I search for CRM System, it knows i'm searching for a customer relationship management system. However, will it recognize less known acronyms? I have a page geared specifically for SAP data archiving for human capital management systems. For those in the industry, they simply call it HCM. Here is how I view my options: Option #1: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/human-capital-management Option #2: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm Option #3: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm-human-capital-management With option #3, i'm capturing the acronym AND the full phrase. This doesn't make my URL overly long either. Of course, in my content i'll reference both. What does everyone else think about the URL? -Alex
On-Page Optimization | | MeasureEverything0 -
Tags vs. Categories? What should I use?
I'm starting with a blog (self-hosted wordpress) and I'm thinking of the following content structure so that the readers are easily able to locate relevant content: Background: It's a blog which gives people relevant info about government jobs. To start with we will just be publishing information about these jobs but over a period of time also intend to post content that helps readers prepare for these jobs. In other words, right now it's just about detailed job notifications but in the coming months, we shall also post about preparation-related information. Typically, each of the job notifications can be bifurcated like: Jobs basis industry Banking Railways Clinical, etc. Jobs basis company ABC co. DEF co. XYZ co. etc. Jobs basis State / City City 1 City 2, etc. Jobs basis educational qualification Graduation Post-Graduation, etc. Now, I'm seriously confused how should I structure this data from the perspective of Categories & Tags such that it's reader as well as SEO-friendly. Do note that each of the government jobs post ideally falls in a couple of above mentioned categories. Thanks..
On-Page Optimization | | Shalin.TJ0 -
Are H1 tags important or influential?
We are in the process of correcting our site in hopes that Google will rank us higher in the SERP. We have many pages that have multiple H1 tags or no H1 tag at all. How important is the H1 tag? Will it help us increase our ranking on Google? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | WebRiverGroup0 -
Rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on?
Very simple, Why would a website (and I have seen tons doing this) link the rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on? Example: somepage.htm has a canonical tag linking to somepage.htm I thought the idea of this tag was to tell google if 2 pages are similar, this page is the original, and it's this page which should be indexed and the page with the tag on should pass all PR to the original. Maybe im wrong and someone can help me out to understand this.
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Website accessible on http and https. Is it bad?
We noticed that our website is accessible on: http://www.example.com and https://www.example.com Both the versions have page rank of 4. Though on https version we have added canonical tag indicating http:// version as preferred. Is this fine or we need to use 301 redirect and let the site be accessible only on http:// version??
On-Page Optimization | | CyrilWilson1 -
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. 7NZcD.png
On-Page Optimization | | TakeLessons1