Is using a subheading to introduce a section before the main heading bad for SEO?

[si.analytics]

I have noticed a popular trend in web design which involves sections of content being started with what looks to be smaller sub heading something like <h3>, <h4> or <h5> and then followed by a bigger heading <h2>.

My question is, what is the best way to deal with this visual structure and will having a structure like this hurt your SEO?

<h5>Contact Us</h5>
<h2>Get started with your next project in minutes!<h2>
<p>Some text here ...</p>

Here are some examples where the header structure is similar to above (smaller before bigger):

• https://www.snappr.com/
• https://form.taxi/
• https://fluz.app/

If that structure is bad for SEO, then it seems like a simple solution is to make it purely visual, mimicking a sub header with styling on a span or paragraph like these sites do:

• https://www.andrejilderda.nl/
• https://nightwatch.io/
• https://www.swingvy.com/
• https://www.figma.com/

My only concern with that approach is because your section sub heading is no longer an actual header you will miss out on ranking important and relevant keyword information for that section. Is this correct something to be worried about?

There is one last solution I stumbled upon that involves using headings for both but in reverse hierarchy so a <h3> is first but styled to be smaller, followed by a visually bigger <h4> which provides the addition context.

• https://avocode.com/

Anyone have thoughts, expertise or resources on the matter?

[seoelevated]

You will also find that you fail some accessibility standards (WCAG) if your heading structure tags are out of sequence. As GPainter pointed out, you really want to avoid styling your heading structure tags explicitly in your CSS if you want to be able to to style them differently in different usage scenarios.

Of course, for your pre-headings, you can just omit the structure tag entirely. You don't need all your important keywords to be contained in structure tags.

You'll want, ideally, just one H1 tag on the page and your most important keyword (or semantically related keywords) in that tag. If you can organize the structure of your page with lower-level heading tags after that, great. It does help accessibility too, just note that you shouldn't break the hierarchy by going out of sequence. But it's not a necessity to have multiple levels of heading tags after the h1.

[samsha]

Hello there,

Thee way i recommend doing is the next one.

H1 (one per page)
H2 (Name of the section, for example How to improve SEO)
H3 (Linkbuilding . it connects to the H2 of "how to improve SEO")
H3 (Blog post. it connects to the H2 too)
H3(Guest posting)

and so on... Never never use more than an H1 on the same page and don't overused H2 as well.

I hope it's clear, let me know if i can help youy with something else.

[GPainter]

Hey there, The best way (and the way I look at it) is like a book. The title of your page is the title, then from there you have chapters (H1) then perhaps sub-chapters (h2) and so forth. Each is relevant in how it breaks down but also wouldn't work the other way around so much.

Some developers are a tad lazy and they will code the size of an h tag so when creating the page instead of actually coding it to match a design they may well use the h tags to help as it 'looks' right but then you may be internally screaming at the way it works over the look. Welcome to SEO where you may be stuck between design and development!

H1 is 'meant to be more powerful and shouldn't be overused on a page as per the chapter guide I said use it sparingly but with more things SEO there is no golden rule and it's all little tweaks. Overall I wouldn't say its 'bad' just not 'optimized'.

Hope that helps or at least gives you something to think about.