Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Choosing a title tag in seo (H1 or H2 or H3)
-
I look many times on google that what is the best tag to set in title for seo, H1 or H2 or H3 In many forums and sites they are asking that you need to put only H2 tag in title and someone ask to put H1 in title and i am confused,
Some body tell me the correct tag for seo in google, or any other search engine.
-
Ben Morei stated the difference between HTML4 and HTML5 in using heading tags already. His answer is therefor completely correct.
What i would like to add to his answer is that you should look at H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 tags as if the webpage is a book. In a book the chapter-title is a H1 tag. All the subchapters have an H2 tag. If these subchapters have another sub-area then this would be marked up with an H3 tag and so on.
Having a clear hierarchy in your heading tags will make it more user friendly. Search engines might also understand better which parts of the content are connected to each other and which are separate because of this.
Hope i answered your question and if anything is still unclear feel free to ask more details.
We have three answers to your question here now and the question is still on marked as 'unanswered'.If your question is answered could you please mark the answer which was most helpful as the correct answer so this question is no longer on the bounty page for no reason?
-
The answer to this questions kind of depends on the technology you are using.
(X)HTML 4 and below will only allow you to use one h1 per page - so it's got to be the most important thing on that page. Think of it like the headline on the front of a newspaper. Your H2 elements are then the sub-heads, h3's sub-subheads and so on; like the newspaper you can have as many of those breaking up the text as you want. This is why you may have heard about people using an h2 element for their main headline, especially on home pages; the most "important" thing there - to the client at least - is the logo, which is therefore often wrapped in an h1.
HTML5, on the other hand, lets you have multiple h1 elements (one per section). So you can wrap your logo - up in the header - in one, you can have one for your page's main headline - it's in a
or- and your sidebar can have one - it's in its own <sidebar>after all. You can even have one in your footer if the whim takes you. Search engines establish which h1 is more important through a hierarchy (article is more important than sidebar is more important than header or footer).
Hope that helps!</sidebar>
-
Hi,
H1 should be the most important title on your page. What you most times see is that you're using H2 and H3 for listings or other headings on the rest of the page.
Martijn.
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
-
Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?
We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be. The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?
On-Page Optimization | | DVLighting0 -
Using a hyphen in title tags and the impact of spaces
Hi I am trying to arrive at a best practice template for a title tag for my organization so does the following template still holds Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name will anything be impacted if I eliminate the spaces between the hyphen, will search bots be still able to treat the first one as a priority and the second as the secondary? Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Brand Name thank you
On-Page Optimization | | lina_digital0 -
Commas in title tags
Hello Guys, Thanks in advance for all who can help me with this I am helping a dinnerware company with their SEO. I told them to change their ambiguous title tags for more specific ones. However, they opted to create some title tags with 2 or three keywords separated by commas. I have attached an excel image illustrating their new title tags.. My question is, will this format be a problem with Google--penalties? The questionable title tags are highlighted in light orange. Thanks! lHH92
On-Page Optimization | | HectorCortes0 -
Colons in title tag?
Does Google view the colon as a keyword separator like it does with the pipe (|) character? Currently, our site automatically constructs the title tag based on the page name given by the user. Long ago, we started using the colon character to visually separate the brand & model of the product from the size, and as a result, all of our title tags have been constructed this way. This was done more to make it easier to read for humans than for search engines. My question is - should I consider getting rid of the colon from our title tags? To give more info, our website sells tires. So, for any given model of tire, there might be 25-100 different individual sizes. The tags are constructed as follows: (brand)(model) : (size). Here's an example from our site: GENERAL ALTIMAX ARCTIC : 225/45R17 91Q The brand is General Tire, the model is the Altimax Arctic and the size is 225/45R17 91Q Since this entire string really constitutes the full product name, should I remove the colon so that Google views it that way? Or, since I have used a colon instead of a pipe, will Google simply ignore it and treat the entire string as one keyword phrase?
On-Page Optimization | | kcourtem0 -
Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?
I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia
On-Page Optimization | | PHDAustralia680 -
Sequence of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) important?
Meaning heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) are a critical part of good on-page optimisation. Fair enough. It helps humans and bots make sense of a page's content. 3 questions regarding implementation of heading tags: Should heading tags appear in sequence in the HTML code. I.e. H1 first, then H2 lower down, etc.? Can the page contain more than one H1 tag? Can the page contain multiple H2, H3, H4 tags?
On-Page Optimization | | AndreVanKets1 -
Do images work as a H1
Is a h1 tag wrapped image with a optimized alt tag as effective as text wrapped in a h1 tag?
On-Page Optimization | | EAOM0 -
SEO for spanish website
Hi, A client has given us the site http://www.comtranslations.com/Home.html for optimization. He wants to optimize only the spanish part ( the link is on the top right ). By clicking on the link Espanol, the url opened is - http://www.comtranslations.com/Principal.html. He wants seo for this website for spanish keywords. The keywords are - Traducción
On-Page Optimization | | seoug_2005
Traductor
traducir español inglés
traducción My question is how do we go about this ? Shall we purchase a software that translates spanish to english ? Thanks0