Headings H1, H2, H3
-
Hi
I'm tidying up my site and had a few questions ref: use of headings.
1. My previous SEO company use to reduce the font size for headings, this seems a bit black hat to me ? Is this okay? For example heading text as font 6 and paragraph text as font 12.
2. If my key search term is 'driving lessons in London' and my second key search term is 'Driving Schools London', Is it better to have my H1 as: Driving Lessons London & H2 as: Driving Schools London
OR
H1: Quality Driving Lessons in London by driveJohnson's
H2: How our driving school in London can help you:
In my opinion the 2nd one reads better and i notice other companies doing it the second way, the first way i mentioned seems a bit old school and doesn't read well ?
3. Is it worth using H3 & H4 ? Can you use H2 more than once ?
4. Lastly could i have two key search terms within one heading, as long as the paragraph underneath is about the heading. For example:
H1: Our driving school in London offers cheap driving lessons
The two keywords search phrases here for me would be driving schools London and driving lessons london.
If someone could get back to me, i would be very grateful.
-
I think the two answers above pretty much cover it.
HX tags aren't a huge SEO factor so I wouldn't lose sleep over them. Fashion your titles for users and if your page is about X Keyword.. GREAT put that into the title naturally. H1 is the only tag I wouldn't have more than one of. H3+ could be duplicated on product titles and whatnot but again it isn't a huge SEO ranking factor anymore.
As far as font sizes I'd make them pleasing to the eye. Google reads HX tags as they're intended to be used: Large titles at the top of the page in H1 are more relevant than multiple H3 tags with small text down lower etc.
Don't worry about making them "Exact match" so much as making them describe what is on the page. Hopefully it happens to be describable with your keywords of value but having them make sense is the most important goal.
Hope that helps!
-
Hey Anthony,
The Headers tags are a usability feature.They're used to guide users on your site. Regardless of the name, a big part of SEO is user experience. Try to think of your headers from a users perspective.
- While styling your headers is recommended, I suggest a larger font size for your headers than for your paragraph fonts.
- Use the version that flows better and the keyword with more exact match search volume.
- For most sites, I use H1 for site title, H2 for page/post titles, and H3s as document headers (I.E. Intro, Instructions, Conclusion, etc)
- In your example you didn't use exact matches of your 2 keywords. So actually your keywords become "driving school in London" instead of your proposed "driving schools London" and "cheap driving lessons" instead of your proposed "driving lessons london". Always try to use exact matches for keywords within your meta tags, otherwise why bother doing the research and picking those keywords?
Hope this helps!
-
Hi Anthony,
Header tags are used to indicate structure in your html document, the styling you apply to them can be anything you like and think makes the page easier to read. While it is a bit unusual to have small headings and larger paragraph fonts, it is certainly not black hat. Is it worth using h3 and h4? You are probably not going to see any seo benefit from using them, but if your document structure makes sense to have them, then use them. Can you use more than one h2? Yes! Check out this post by Yoast which should answer most of your questions regarding structure and proper usage.
In regards what text is best, I would go with your second 'more readable' suggestion. Write your content with users in mind first, it is easy to get caught up in minor variations with the idea that it might make some difference to your rankings. 99/100 it wont, and you will just get a page that reads a bit oddly for real users.
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
-
Why our page not ranking even searching for exact h1 tag?
Even I search for exact h1 tag heading from our homepage, it's (homepage) not been showing up on TOP of the results. Other websites with partial match of search query are ranking above us; why this is happening? And other website with same text as normal paragraph is ranking on top. But not out h1 tag from homepage? How come normal text of unrelated website is ranking above h1 heading from homepage of own website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
H3 Tags - Should I Link to my content Articles- ? And do I have to many H3 tags/ Links as it is ?
Hello All, On my ecommerce landing pages, I currently have links to my products as H3 Tags. I also have useful guides displayed on the page with links useful articles we have written (they currently go to my news section). I am wondering if I should put those article links as additional H3 tags as well for added seo benefit or do I have to many tags as it is ?. A link to my Landing Page I am talking about is - http://goo.gl/h838RW Screenshot of my h1-h6 tags - http://imgur.com/hLtX0n7 I enclose screenshot my guides and also of my H1-H6 tags. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Best practice for H1 on site without H1 - Alternative methods?
I have recently set up a mens style blog - the site is made up of articles pulled in from a CMS and I am wanting to keep the design as clean as possible - so no text other than the articles. This makes it hard to get a H1 tag into the page - are there any solutions/alternatives? that would be good for SEO? The site is http://www.iamtheconnoisseur.com/ Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SWD.Advertising0 -
H1 tag on website logo problem?
Currently my website is having H1 tag on website logo and also h2 tag on post title. I think for seo it is good to use H1 to my post title and H2 to website logo?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MasonBaker0 -
H1 Page Title Tag Placement
I'm a little confused over the correct area to place a H1 title Tag. When I look at Wordpress templates and published Wordpress sites, it suggests placing the H1 tag within the header area. However, SEO companies and other well postioned sites place the H1 title tag at the start of the main content area. What is the correct and/or best practice for placing H1 page title tags? Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch0 -
H2 Tag Backlink - is this safe?
I have found that my site is getting a link from a good site, but my concern is that the link is in a H2 tag in the footer of the front page of the site Would getting a link from a site wrapped in H2 tags be safe? The anchor is my sites brand name
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
HEADS UP - Did Google Grant WMT and GA admin access to your past employees or contractors?
Check your users and permissions in WMT and GA. I noticed that two Gmail accounts from a while back were given admin access to our accounts! That means someone that used to work for you could go in and remove your site from Googles index. Check your accounts folks just a heads up 😉 Here is an article talking about this potentially dangerous issue. http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/11/28/serious-google-security-glitch-gives-webmaster-tools-possibly-analytics-access-to-revoked-accounts
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | irvingw1 -
H1 or H2 for Post Title SEO
I know people suggest having a H1 with your keyword on your page somewhere to help with SEO. My current wordpress theme has the post title as a H2. Is there a big difference in using H1 vs H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DojoGuy0