Page Title versus H1 title
-
What's the difference between the Page Title and the H1 title? It seems like both summarize the page. Is it a wasted opportunity to make them the same? Should they be similar but slightly different?
-
of course! so my recommendation would be to inspect the page (with chrome dev tools) and see if it is styled as an H1, and if it isn't styled as a true H1, I would add that as a task to your backlog but I wouldn't suggest that you make it higher priority then other more important ranking factors. That being said, most of these SEO best practice recommendations come from people doing tests and identifying trends, so there is no 100% solid answer that "yes you NEED it to be styled as a true H1" or "no it does not matter at all".
My personal opinion is that it still carries some value, so if you can figure it out, I would recommend that you do have it read as a true H1 tag. Even if it does not impact your rankings significantly, I think that your site will be better off following all recommended best practices.
-
Thank you for the over and above response!
My quandry is that the text that is really the "H1" on each page is done in a certain styling on the web platform such that we can't control the text for it to be an H1. We can't choose it with a menu or do it on the back end through code and tagging. (Maybe we could if we really dig into it, not sure.)
The text is very clear on the page and functions exactly in the way I believe an H1 should function, clarifying what the page is about (similar to the page title but not always exactly that same words). We like the styling, and it's clear and visual. I was wondering if we should worry that tools like Moz Pro don't see it officially as an H1. It seems from most things I'm hearing is that it functions as an H1 already and we don't need to spend the time to get it to be stylized as official H1. That's why I was wondering exactly what H1s are for and why they are important. If it's for directing the viewer on the page, we've done that. If it's for something more that needs official H1 "status" we don't have that.
-
Thank you for the response! I really appreciate it.
-
Title Tags = Page Titles (if you're using a CMS, it is usually called page title, not title tag).Your title tag is the name that appears on your browser tab. This is one of the first places that search engine spiders crawl to see what a page is about. When it comes to SERP ranking, your title tag has far far more of an influence then the H1 does. In fact, so many people used to keyword stuff the H1 and use it for spam, that it no longer has much of impact at all, if any. The H1 of a page is now more intended for the user to get a clear idea of what they are about to read, as well as styling of your pages. Moz recommends the following format for your title tag: Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name. However, if your title tag doesn't match what content of the page is about, than you're spamming.
Here's an example: Let's say you have a page about why organic apples are the best, and you sell organic fruit and your brand name is organics (which is probably a real brand name but oh well, it's for this example). Your title tag (page title) could be this: Why Organic Apples Are Better - Premium Organic Fruit | Organics. But your H1 could be: "Why You Should Start Eating Organic Apples Only" or "Why You Should Avoid Non-Organic Apples" and it would be the first thing on-page.
-
Hi,
Main Differences:
Title Tags appear in search engines and the Web browser’s title bar
H1 Headers appear within the body text of the webpage
Search engines give more weight to Title Tags than H1 HeadersPlease check this old thread on similar query @ https://moz.com/community/q/can-h1-and-meta-title-be-exactly-the-same-why-not
Hope this helps.
Thanks
-
Hello,
I refer to this Moz article when writing Meta Title tags https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag with the optimal format:
Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
The H1 tag would look unnatural in the same format. Personally I use the H1 tag to focus on my primary keyword if the page is mostly focusing on the primary keyword. The H1 tag should provide a good user experience when a visitor lands on the page and give an indication of the content within. If you make it unreadable it will result in a bounce back to the SERP.
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
-
"Avoid Multiple Page Title Elements"
Hi, in page recommondation I get a "Acoid Multiple Page Tile Elements" Fix. Make sure your page has only one <title>tag. </span><em>"Web pages are meant to have a single title, and for both accessibility and search engine optimization reasons, we strongly recommend following this practice"</em></p> <p>Well I'm trying....I am not able to find where og why I have multiple titles in this page?</p> <p>This is a norwegian page, but maybe someone can look through it?</p> <p>http://www.proplantime.no/bransjer/bygganlegg/mannskapsliste</p></title>
On-Page Optimization | | Marked_Proplan0 -
Exact keyword match for meta title and h1 what is best practice?
How exact should my meta titles and H1 one be compare to the keyword you wish to rank on. Eksample. When I do a research with google AdWords the keyword tool shows me: 260 monthly searches for house for rent Hua Hin 140 monthly searches for Hua Hin house for rent 70 monthly searches for House for rent in Hua Hin The first two includes the exact same 5 words while the last one includes the stopword "in". That google have different search volumens for these very smilair search queries tells me that small differences matters. So how does that effect the way i shoulf write my: a)meta titles b)H1 I feel I get better sentences often by reordering the keywords etc. “Top tips on how to rent house in Hua Hin” Instead of “Top tips if you want a house for rent in Hua Hin” Do you use stop words like “in” hua hin. (only used in 25% of the searches queries)? Also would it matter if i write a plural form of a keyword instead of a singular etc propeties and sted of property? My goal is to write easy to read and unique content but i feel i can make exact matches if required with out compromising to much.
On-Page Optimization | | nm19770 -
Homepage title on pages/posts title
I want to see the title of the page/post. Right now it is indexing it like page name / homepage name site:forumlist.info Brief info about site
On-Page Optimization | | csfarnsworth
Build in wordpress
SEO Plugin "All in one SEO pack" Settings snapshot are available below http://i.imgur.com/G278Y1Z.png http://imgur.com/gb0YQUO http://imgur.com/fbXQgd1 http://imgur.com/atj3AS4 Anyone can guide me how to fix it?0 -
Wordpress Post as Slideshow - One long page vs many short pages?
We are working on implementing a slideshow format for some of the posts on a website, and it appears that using this format breaks a long post into several shorter pages. That's what we want from a user experience standpoint, but are wondering if there are negative SEO implications from having the content broken up in this way, and whether search engines will view it as one longer page or several very short pages? Here is an example: http://www.forthebestrate.com/10-cheap-ideas-for-summer-fun/ Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | ILM_Marketing0 -
Is Google indexing something I can't see on my page title?
When I do a search for my businesses website (colourpages.com) it returns a listing which is great but the title tag includes Hull Colour Pages which is our old brand name - we changed to colourpages.com 2 years ago yet Hull Colour Pages is still pulling through on the title tag. I have checked the source and it's as follows: <title>Plumbers in Hull - Reviews - colourpages.com</title> I have attached a photo which shows the issue - http://imgur.com/Cva3001 Is Google indexing it from old history that is no longer visible or am I missing something? Cva3001
On-Page Optimization | | colourpages0 -
What is the threshold for a page title to be considered duplicate?
We're trying to find out what percentage of words in a page title need to be the same for it to be considered duplicate? We have search results pages for each country on our site, so the only difference in the page title is the country name and they are all being flagged as duplicate, even though they are not 100% duplicate.
On-Page Optimization | | Odjobob0 -
Fixed horrible title tag on home page, and lost ranking. Will it come back?
I was helping out someone on their site and its home page ranked on page 2 for their term, and the title tag was horrible. It was 160 characters long with lots of near repetitive keywords ([keyword] - adjective [keyword] - adjective [keyword] - adjective [keyword] etc.) -- typical title that Google would penalize when it got around to it. So I created a title that made sense, for the keyword, and that followed the best practices of Google recommendations. Now it's dropped off the index. (EDIT: sorry, still in index, just not even in top 1000) Is this something I should not have done? I was just trying to keep them from getting slammed. And, how long should I expect it to take to get my ranking back? This is the only page title I changed.
On-Page Optimization | | bizzer0 -
Do images work as a H1
Is a h1 tag wrapped image with a optimized alt tag as effective as text wrapped in a h1 tag?
On-Page Optimization | | EAOM0