"Heading 1" vs. "Title" Style for SEO
-
In Word, you can specify "Heading 1" text which Google presumably treats the same as an
HTML tag. Is there any benefit in using the "Title" style? Is it the equivalent of a web page's title?
-
No problem.
-
Beauty. Thanks Mike.
-
This article from Google Webmasters Central should solve it for you, Supporting Rel Canonical HTTP Headers
Mike
-
Thanks for the info! However, I'm still trying to figure out the best way to offer both web content as well as PDFs. Is there a way to offer a downloadable PDF but canonicalize it to the web content to avoid duplicate content issues?
-
Here is some additional great info on optimizing PDFs:
-
Ah! I see what you are saying.
No. The "title" style will not help you; however, H1-H6 in a PDF will still help you, along with the file name.
You can specify the Title, Author, and Subject on the Description tab under File > Properties in Acrobat.
That should help you optimize your PDF.
Mike
-
I've been using PDFs because it is the way we want to make downloadable content available for our users. In the past I created webpage versions of our content as well but I am worried about duplicate content issues.
The optimal scenario would be to have both the PDF and webpage but canonicalize the PDF to the page. Is that possible? Right now, I am only aware of the ability to pass canonicalization to the PDF from a webpage, not the other way around.
-
Yes this does make more sense but now I have to tell you how anti-PDF I am.
I absolutely hate PDFs. Sorry. Not trying to be rude and I'm sure you have your reasons, but is there anyway you can make this a webpage instead? What are the reasons, if you don't mind me asking.
Optimizing a PDF is not something I can advise you on but I can tell you that they don't work with things like H1 tags and hypertext markup...
-
Please see my response to Jesse. Hopefully I made things clear
-
I think there is some confusion. I am talking about using Word to create a PDF to be placed on our site. The PDFs rank fairly well but I want to be sure we are optimizing the titles with proper tags if possible.
Does that make more sense now?
So basically my question is: is there a way to define a line of text in a PDF / word doc to indicate to Google that it is the "h1" tag on the page and give it greater emphasis?
-
You will want to have your heading 1 style configured to use an
tag. You would not want to use <heading1>or any variation... you'd want to use
.
If you are using a WYSIWYG editor and you copy text from Word that is using a Heading 1 style, the code version should interpret that as
- which Google should see the code equivalent of heading 1.
Make sense?
Mike</heading1>
-
if the html tag is style="heading1" and it's adding something in there like that ( that wouldn't do anything, but as an example) then no. The tag needs to read
for google to register it as an h1 tag.
Honestly this would all be resolved if you weren't using Word. Why are you using Word?
-
That does make sense. Is that the case for the "Heading 1" style as well?
It makes sense to me that Google would look for the "Heading 1" style much like it would an
tag.
-
Hi David,
No there isn't any benefit.
The "Title" style is just that, a style. It will occur in the body section of your HTML and will not impact how Google ranks your page. It just changes the physical attributes of the text to look nice.
The "Title" tag is an element in HTML. It occurs in the head section of your HTML and will impact how Google ranks your page. This is one of the more powerful, if not the most powerful, on-page SEO elements.
Does that make sense?
Mike
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
-
Seeking SEO contractor
I would like to hire an SEO contractor to assist with some technical/SEO issues on our site (Schema, etc). Can anyone make a recommendation? I am looking to work with a small company. Thank you in advance for any referrals!
On-Page Optimization | | JulieALS0 -
Does a similar article title bring negative impact to seo?
I am wondering if a similar article title may bring negative impact to seo, such as: 1. The benefits of eating potatoes 2. The benefits of eating tomatoes 2. The benefits of eating apples. Any idea? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | tangjianghuan0 -
SEO for E-Commerce Sites
Hi Everybody, I have two e-commerce sites just launched with not much content at the moment just user login pages for the clients to avail the service. The management is not interested to put much content there i think. Maximum what they will be putting only 5 pages of content in total, not more than this. Any practical tips how to optimize such sites especially when there is not much content. Best
On-Page Optimization | | Sequelmed0 -
Do you say Browser Title or Page Title?
I have seen much more use of "Page Title" of late....in fact hardly any of "Browser Title" except by some folks who are using a very old CMS. We need to go with one at my workplace to avoid confusion. My vote is Page Title. Thoughts? Thanks, Tim
On-Page Optimization | | Jen_Floyd0 -
Local on-page SEO
If it feels like you are doing something wrong, then you 'probably' are... Local on-page SEO When optimising a page for local SEO, and trying tick all the usuals boxes, you find yourself adding words like 'golf clubs leeds' which sounds awful when part of a natural paragraph of text. Does Google recognise this poor use of grammar? We try to be as creative as possible, as not to offend the visitor, but it feels wrong... any advice? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | indicoll0 -
Google not showing the proper title
I noticed that google is not showing the proper title in the search results. If you search for PhraseExpander, the title that google reports is: PhraseExpander: Text Expander for Windows but in the title of the page I've set Text Expander for Windows - PhraseExpander Why is that? How can I make google report the proper title? Thanks. Andrea
On-Page Optimization | | nagar0 -
Local SEO Title-Tag Optimization
Hi Everyone! A bit of a greenhorn SEO here, and I'm trying to learn a bit more about some of the best practices in local SEO. I'm wondering if anyone can help me with the following scenario: Business: Dental Care & Surgery Location: Springfield IN Name: Springfield Dental Care Experts (example) Website: 18 content pages, pages dedicated to each service Since there are 18 pages to work with, there are plenty of places for us to mix-up the title tags. However, I am still unclear as to what the best way would be to do this. I understand that the Geo-modifiers should go at the front, and that the brand name is considered optional. Would tags such as this make sense? Springfield IN Dentist | Springfield Dental Care Experts Nearby town Mountainview IN Dental Care | Springfield Dental Care Experts Last question: The website has pages for each of the services offered by the dentist, ex: Dental Cleanings, Consultations, Fillings, Surgery, etc. Should each of the pages be included in the title tag? Springfield IN Dentist | Springfield Dental Care Experts - Dental Surgery My concern is that buy adding this, the title tag would be too long. Thank you for taking the time to read and respond!
On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell0 -
Would adding a line break tag into the product name affect SEO ranking and Google's ability to read the entire title?
Our client would like to include a link break so that part of the product name always showed up on a second line. Would this affect how Google bots crawl the product name? Would it also affect how Google would show the product name in a search result page? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0