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
-
Will SEO Blogs Divert Traffic from Main Web pages using same keywords?
Our company has drafted several SEO blogs using certain keywords. If we post these SEO blogs to our website and social media channels , and the blog keywords are also used on our main website pages, will the blogs divert or dilute traffic to our main web pages? Thank you for your expertise and insights in advance.
Content Development | | Johnenchroma0 -
I want to use some content that I sent out in a newsletter and post as a blog, but will this count as duplicate content?
I want to use some content that I sent out in a newsletter a while ago - adding it as a blog to my website. The newsletter exists on a http://myemail.constantcontact.com URL and is being indexed by Google. Will this count as duplicate content?
Content Development | | Wagada0 -
From a company perspective; would you recommend using a service like postloop to acquire additional blog comments through paying users.
I’m always hesitant when it comes to purchasing comments but it seems like a natural approach. Is this something that Google would take notice and/or frown upon? - Anything we should avoid? Any additional information would be helpful. Thank you in advance.
Content Development | | Ben-R0 -
Wordpress Blog Pages, Duplicate Title Tag
Anyone have any experience in fixing the duplicate Title tag on a Wordpress blog multiple pages Basically the title tag remains the same on the pages /Blog/ /Blog/Page/2/ /Blog/Page/3/ My good friend Yoast Plugin doesn't seem to of resolved this (Unless i have missed something?) I don't really see this to be effecting anything and wouldn't of through it would either, but it would be nice to not see the notification within Moz site crawls and campaigns etc, its more of a cosmetic problem Any solutions ? Thanks James
Content Development | | Antony_Towle0 -
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 -
Marking our content as original, where the rel=author tag might not be applied
Hello, Can anyone tell, if it is possible to protect text –type content without the rel=author tag? We host a business listing site, where, apart from the general contact information, we have also started to write original 800+ character-long unique and original contents for the suppliers, where we expect visits, so rankings should be increased. My issue is that this is a very competitive business, and content crawling is really an everyday practice. Of course, I would like to keep my original content or at least mark it as mine for Google. The easiest way would be the author tag, but the problem is, that I do not want our names and our photos to be assigned to these contents, because from one hand, we are not acknowledged content providers on our own (no bio and whatsoever), and on the other hand, we provide contents for every sort of businesses, so just having additional links to our other contents, might not help readers to get what they want. I also really do not think that a photo of me could help increase the CTR from the SERP:) What we currently do, is that we submit every major fresh content through url submission in WMT, hoping that first indexing might help. We have only a handful of them within a day, so not more than 10. Yes, I could perhaps use absolute links, but this one is not a feasible scenario in all cases, and about DMCA, as our programmer says, what you can see on the internet, that you can basically own. So finally, I do not mind our contents being stolen, as I can’t possibly prevent this. I want however our original content to be recognized as ours by Google, even after the stealing is done. (Best would be an ’author tag for business’, so connected to our business Google+ page, but I am not aware, this function can be used this way.) Thank you in advance for all of you, sharing your thoughts with me on the topic.
Content Development | | Dilbak0 -
Can you use creative commons non-commercial images on a company blog?
Does anyone know if it is okay to use creative commons images on your company blog if they are under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license. Technically you are using it on a commercial site, but you are not directly making money from the image or selling it.
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0 -
Using testimonials to build quality content
I don't see a lot of talk on here about using testimonials to build good content. From what I have seen, the search engines love client testimonials. I haven't found a good service provider for this yet. I'm thinking something combined with Twitter or FB that also allows you to show the content on your site would be great. Can anyone recommend a service like this? I'm checking out a service called, "Quick Vouch" but I haven't tested it yet.
Content Development | | BradBorst0