Use Of H1 Tags
-
I just have a quick question. I have seen a few people mention that the use of more than 1 H1 tag has little bearing on things.
I am trying to sort out a site for a friend and it has 2 H1 tags. My issue is that it is ranking for a quite competitive keyword (don't know how as the whole site layout is a total mess) but in my efforts to clean up the site I am wondering if I should actually reduce the No of H1 Tags to 1 or leave 'as is' for fear of breaking something.
Thanks
Paul
-
I wouldn't worry about 2 H1 tags if that's how the page works naturally. It's more important to structure your headers in the correct order, so don't have a H2 before you've had a H1, for example.
See Google's Matt Cutts on the issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM
HTML5 might be changing things as there are more tags to specify page sections. You probably don't have to worry about that yet though.
-
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. I think i will go ahead and remove the H1. Although the site uses CSS it is pretty crap all in all so I might as well change it now as we try and sort the site out.
I just wanted to be sure that I would not trigger something by removing one of them.
Thanks
Paul
-
Hi Paul
As you'll probably know, the H1 tag has a lot less of an influence on the Googlebot nowadays. IF it were to come across a site with like, 8 H1s there might be a slight chance of it thinking "this site is over-optimising", but two H1s on a page shouldn't have any risk of doing this.
In super-onpage-best-practice-land, I'd say if you could get rid of one of the H1s, I'd do so - as having just one H1 would let Google be a bit more certain what the page was about. But of course, the H1 is not the be all and end all and the Googlebot will almost certainly detect what your page is about even if it does have two conflicting H1s.
Consider as well the design of the website. If the site uses a CSS theme that makes H1s just seem a lot more useful to use, I wouldn't be worried about using 2.
You certainly wouldn't break anything by removing an H1 - just deduce whether it's necessary. If it comes at a severe detriment to style and the look of the page, I wouldn't bother. If not, then yeah, removing an H1 may help a bit, but the effect won't be huge.
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
-
How do I use meta descriptions properly?
Hi there, I am starting to write a blog and I wanted to know, how to write meta descriptions correctly? I have been reading a lot about this subject lately and I found very different opinions in terms of length. Could you give me some advise about this? Thank you!!
Content Development | | lucywrites1 -
I went and added a H1 on my posts, but it is saying the issue was not fixed. Any ideas?
I "thought" I fixed a bunch of missing H1's on my blog, but when recrawled said the issue is still there. Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong or how to fix? I'm not sure what to do other than put in an H1 heading-which I did. Thanks! Jamie
Content Development | | JamieReinhart0 -
Use old content from Archive
Hello all, I just were looking on Archive.org and though what if i use the content from a really old website thats already been un-indexed. Could i just use this content on my new website and will it not be duplicate content? Thank you for your comment! Kind regards,
Content Development | | MennoO0 -
Can someone PLEASE help me find a solution to use a custom search engine for iPhones?? Thanks in advance!
Hey mozzers, I'm in quite the pickle today and would really appreciate some help! i need a way to have my members set their default custom search engine on their iPhones and androids to our sites search engine. Google chrome does on desktops but not iPhones. Thanks for your time/help, Tyler Abernethy
Content Development | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Http://www.social-bookmarking.net is it good platform to use
I am just looking at different ways to attract traffic and i would like to know if anyone uses http://www.social-bookmarking.net and if so do they feel it is good for gaining traffic. i have used it before but never gained anything from it so maybe i am using it wrong, would love to hear your thoughts on it
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
What are the best widgets to use on Wordpress? And what is most useful on Wordpress for content syndication?
We are in the process of researching the best plugins and widgets for our clients' blogs. It appears that SEO by Yoast is most popular for 2013 so far. Any recommendations on which widgets we should be using or plugins for content syndication? If we use something like the Jetpack plugin, would this do the trick?
Content Development | | qlkasdjfw0 -
Content Marketing, Who do I use?
I know nothing about content marketing, so who do I hire? Who are the authorities & leaders in this new era of digital marketing.
Content Development | | KristopherWho0 -
Soulf I use follow or no follow and why?
Is someone able to suggest the pros and cons of using follow or nofollow for comments please.
Content Development | | worldwideadventurer0