Does it matter what text you wrap in an H1 tag?
-
Typically H1 tags are reserved for page headings, i.e. on a blog post the blog post title is very often the pages H1, or top-level heading as the W3C puts it.
On the SEOmoz home page they currently have "SEO Software." as their H1 tag, which seems perfectly reasonable and to me fits the W3C criteria.
However, what if the primary keyword for SEOmoz was "seo community" so they decided to wrap just those two words in the sentence that follows on their home page and maintain the existing style of the words "seo community" with CSS. (see attachment)
Are there any arguments against doing that?
Would Google be able to detect this? If so, would Google care?
I do believe the overall importance of the H1 tag has lessened to a degree, however I still believe they are valuable to an extent and would love to hear anyone's thoughts.
-
The same H1 rule goes for all other headers.
Headers are headers, mixing them in with the text content isn't very helpful in a user perspective.
A quick tip is to try to add questions to the h2 to keep the text SEO and user friendly.
So let's rephrase this into a h2 question:
Interested in commercial landscaping design?
We're the ones to call!
Call us at 1-866-236-7263 or contact us by email.
Hope I could help
Best,
Gustav
-
Great Q&A here - very clear and helpful. Now let me expand the question to H2 tags. If I keep the H1 as a proper heading on a page, but embed an H2 tag in a sentence is that considered acceptable SEO tactics?
Here's the example - as the 3rd paragraph of a page:
If you’re interested in
commercial landscaping design
, we’re the ones to call. Call us at 1-866-236-7263 or contact us by email.
What do you think?
-
Ok, now I understand what you meant
I agreee, In my opinion that's not a good way to use an H1 tag.
It would still work for rankings but I would also consider it as trying to cheat google.
It's always better to look at the sentence and restructure it and make it more of a selling copy text, for example:
The largest SEO community!
SEOmoz Pro combines campaign-based monitoring, actionable recommendations, and premium access to the web's largest seo community <a href="">- try it free for 30 days!</a>.
/ Gustav
-
Hey Gustav, thanks for the response. As a quick follow up for clarity on my end. Here's an example of what I was referring to using the SEOmoz home page as an example again. Would it be okay from your perspective to do the following?
SEOmoz Pro combines campaign-based monitoring, actionable recommendations, and premium access to the web's largest
SEO community
- try it free for 30 days.
Again, assuming that primary keyword for SEOmoz is "seo community." To me this is an effort to try and fool Google into thinking that SEO community is your top-level heading when in reality it's just a section of a sentence. Would you agree?
-
Hi! to specify: Yes, the words in the H1 tag matters
-
Hi!
The H1 is always important, I've tried several test with the h1 and title tag to see if the correlation still works and improve rankings. In my experience it does.
As long as you don't use css to modify the h1 so that another element of the text below is actually bigger or resemble an h1 it should be fine. Don't try to fool Google by changing the appeareance of the h1 to much(use common sense), remember you can always use an H2 tag below if it makes the content better.
Remember the H1 should always be unique for the page and should not be the same on several pages.
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
-
Logo Image H1 Tag SquareSpace
We have a site hosted on SquareSpace: Roomhance.com Going through the on-page optimizaton tool, we noticed that the H1 tags weren't fully optimized. If you click on view source on the page, it shows 2 H1 tags on the home page: id="logoImage"><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">href</a><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">="</a>/">src="//static1.squarespace.com/static/5bcca055ab1a62465f5b9ee7/t/5c18feb270a6adf771765799/1588613682225/?format=1500w" alt="Virtual Staging For Real Estate | Roomhance" /> style="text-align:center;white-space:pre-wrap;">Virtual Staging The 2nd one shown above it the H1 tag we want. I'm wondering if the H1 tag in the logo image is hurting us for SEO? Can't figure out how to modify it in SquareSpace.
On-Page Optimization | | vikasnwu0 -
Duplicate Content and Other Issues from Blog Tags and Categories
I have recently taken over the maintenance/redesign of our website and after setting up Moz I see many errors:
On-Page Optimization | | jgoethert
Duplicate content
Missing descriptions
Duplicate titles
etc. All are related to blog categories and tags. My questions are: are these errors hurting us? Should I simply remove tags/categories from the sitemaps or bite the bullet and create content for every single category page? Our site is https://financiallysimple.com/ and we are using Yoast plugin in Wordpress (if that helps)2 -
H1 & H2 headers - When is too close
Hi, I have two similar headers on my site's homepage: H2: Inventory management made easy H1: Kitchen inventory management made easy Target keyword for the page: (kitchen inventory management) My question is are they too similar and would this be effecting my rankings? Should I change the H2 header to something totally different? Thank you Moz Peoples
On-Page Optimization | | vertigoventures0 -
How can i define a ALT Tag for Youtube videos?
Hello, When i scan with SEMrush it shows all such pages do not have ALT Tags http://img.youtube.com/vi/iJ4pmmRSZxc/hqdefault.jpg What should the ALT be for them and how can i control as we have 1000's of Youtube videos displayed on various parts of our website Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | ktrinkqao120 -
How to position and structure H1 and H2 on a page
Quick Question: We have been working on a website for an hotel and we are now facing an issue regarding how to position the H1 and H2 on each page: Since the Client has expressed the desire to have the title of the page mentioned right above the textWould it make sense to have the title of the page as H1 and have more descriptive H2 right below it? Ex: H1--> Accommodation H2--> Page Description Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | travelclickseo0 -
Title Tags
Would it be wise to change title tags on the fly? ex. NFL regular season is now complete and they are into the playoffs, want to optimize and structure page around new info. Worried about losing current rank. Thanks guys
On-Page Optimization | | TP_Marketing0 -
2 keyword title tag best format
I have a client that does ski and snowboard rentals in lake tahoe and not sure what the best way to optimize the home page title tag. Lake Tahoe Ski and Snowboard Rental
On-Page Optimization | | tahoemedia
Lake Tahoe Ski & Snowboard Rental
Ski & Snowboard Rental Lake Tahoe
Ski Rental | Snowboard Rental | Lake Tahoe Which one of these is the best or is it not even listed??? Thanks!0 -
Are Title meta tag keywords case sensitive'
Hi! One of the fixups that SEOmoz analysis reports is that my main keyword isn't part of the page title. The problema is that the keyrord is there but in uper case while i introduced a lower case keyword for analysis (see the example). BEAUTY (it's in the page title) beauty (that's the keyword i'm analysing) Regards, OV
On-Page Optimization | | ovieira0