Having a Keyword in # is not that important in 2018, Do you agree?

[SameerBhatia]

Earlier having a Keyword in

was one of the important ranking factor or at least every SEO guru use to suggest this. But, of late, we are noticing that Google is not giving much weightage to it.

What are your thoughts on this?

[ZAG]

We have had this lively debate at our agency and another factor is ADA conformance - which requires an H1 for screenreaders. Does anyone have research as to if the H1 is visually hidden (but in code for screenreaders), this is a black hat technique or acceptable? Looking at even Moz's own site and Google for H1 best practices is a rabbit hole of this H1 argument between developers and marketing.

[KevinBudzynski]

Yep, I always try to figure out user's intent and then try to match:  Search Query = Page Title in Serps = Relevant landing page's H1.  Always works great for us!

[EGOL]

Some people will argue endlessly and to their last breath about that.

But, we have <title>matching <h1> on thousands of pages and the result has been killer against  difficult competition.  </p> <p>One must be careful not to blindly follow everything one reads about SEO in forums, in tool instructions and in articles because at least 40% percent is outdated, another 20% is rubbish, and another 20% is prattle.  (and much of what I have written falls into those categories too)</p> <p>The best thing to do is to decide who you are will to believe rather than what you are willing to believe, look at the date, then bet on your own judgement.</p> <p> </p></title>

[Nigel_Carr]

I think I saw somewhere a warning somewhere if the description was matched to an H2 or something silly like that! lol

I completely agree with you EGOL!

Rant on!

[EGOL]

I want the target keyword in

for search engines - because I think that it is helpful to ranking.  And, I also want the keyword there for the visitor - because it tells them "You Have Arrived".

<rant>Somebody started spreading the word that <title>matching <h1> is bad form.  They should be sent to jail.  :-)</rant></p></title></rant>

[Casey_Bryan]

Yep exactly! Every page should be targeted to a specific keyword theme, therefore it makes sense the keyword is in the h1 so the user (and Google is one of those users) knows exactly what the page is about from the get-go Good luck!

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Sameer

My thoughts are that it is the overall content on the page which is important. Having semantically connected keywords and phrases in a well written, contextually strong format which conveys the theme of the page perfectly.

I don't regard H1 on its own as a ranking factor but as part of defining the theme of the page, it is absolutely essential.

Using H2s to further break up the content into well defined closely related blocks of text is also very important.

Regards

Nigel

[Alick300]

Hi,

It is absolutely still valuable.

Thanks