H2's are already ranking well. Should I rock the boat?

[5outhpaw]

I recently began work for a company and discovered that they are not using h1's (using h2's) and rank in the top 5 for ~90% of their keywords.

The site is one of the original players in their industry, has massive amounts of domain authority and tens of thousands of linking root domains. However, they are currently being beaten on some of their top keywords by a few of their younger competitors.

Moving their current h2 text into h1 tags could be helpful. But to what extent? Since they already rank well for so many competitive keywords, Is it worth it to rock the boat by moving their h2 text into h1 tags and risk affecting their current rankings?

[5outhpaw]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question Claudio.

[5outhpaw]

Thanks for taking the time to detail your explanation, Nakul. Your method is a good one for testing. Cheers!

[5outhpaw]

Thanks for your feedback and experience Mark. I appreciate it.

[5outhpaw]

I really appreciate your encouragement, Brad. Your experience provides me with some hope of further boosting organic rankings and besting the competition. Thanks for sharing.

[5outhpaw]

I've been doing SEO for a decent amount of time. You would think I would remember "when in doubt, test it out."

It's funny how when you're in the thick of things that the most obvious of answers can elude you.This is why I love the Moz community. Thanks for the reminder Ade!

[Intergen]

I agree with all of the others especially about testing on a few keywords that are not mission critical.

My experience and past sites I have optimized are not affected much by H2 tags.  The main factors that really made a difference were the title tags, H1, page interlinking using anchor text (not over-optimized - vary it).

There are 200+ (from the last info I heard) ranking factors. Obviously having all of these work together in synergy is best.

The good news you already have domain authority etc. I would think that it definitely won't hurt and may even help slightly.

[bradkrussell]

Hi Collin,

I recently did this for a client site of mine (alas it didn't have a huge amount of domain authority). The results were very pleasing, we noticed a jump in keywords simply from switching from H2 to H1.

My advice - definitely go ahead with testing like the others have suggested. You've got nothing to lose!

Thanks,

Brad

[SharewarePros]

Dear Collin,

I agree 100% with my mates, but I want to add some of my experience, for years I was doing this :

1. the exactly content of your title tag (I assume you're using your most important keywords) should be in the H! tag and this H1 tag should be as close to tag as is possible (prominence) you can use only one H1 tag on the page.

2. The use the H2 tag is optional and you can use it two or more times (no bother), usually I use two H2 tags with keywords related to my H1 (main keyword).

In the past months I was feeling the H2 is not important as in the past, and google now disagree with "over optimization" thats mean "pages with perfect keywords distribution, prominence and density".....

So you should use your primary keyword in the title tag and H1 tag and optionally H2 tags, the key is original and useful content for visitors.

Hope this help

Claudio

[NakulGoyal]

I agree with Ade. Just test it on a small scale and see what the results look like. I would suggest you try a couple different options.

1. Keywords Currently in Positions 2-5

2. Keywords Currently in Positions 6-10

3. Keywords Currently on Page 2

Find 5 in each category, make the changes and watch and see where the most impact was and make sure you are not directly impacting the test with any other items of influence (as much as you can control) to get an accurate read on the test.

[AdeLewis]

Hi Colin,

Why don't you take it slowly and carry out some testing?

I would choose a few pages where they are ranking well for some (not so important) keywords and switch these titles to H1's, leave it for a few weeks and see how it goes.