SEO Quick Tips: Heading Tags (H1 & H2)

Search Engine Optimisation has a variety of different categories as most of you are all aware and each category is important in its own right.  On-Page SEO is one of the categories that is considered crucial to any SEO strategy as you have direct control of the outcome and success of it.
Heading Tags in particular is a sub category of on-page SEO and although a fairly simple factor it often gets overlooked and can be done incorrectly which will have an adverse effect on your SEO strategy and search engine rankings.
Our Strategic Search Engine Optimisation experts based in London have put together a quick tips guide on Heading Tags, namely H1 & H2 tags, to highlight the importance of them and how to properly utilise them in your SEO strategy.

1. What Are Heading Tags

   Headings are what it says on the tin, they are the first thing a reader should see when on your web page and the main piece of information that tells the reader what they are going to read.  Headings should be specific and contain important keywords that relate to what the reader is looking for and more importantly related to what the content is about.
   Headings are categorised by tags using H1 and H2 as the main tags.  H1 is defined to be the title of the page, whereas H2 is defined by sub headings of that page.  The aim of tags is to ensure your page is structured appropriately and easily identifiable for the reader to read.

2. Why Are Heading Tags Important

   Heading tags are important for two main reasons.
   The first is that it gives readers a quick overview of what they are about to read and what the content is all about.
   The second is that Google take this sub category of on-page SEO into consideration when ranking a page.  Google will use crawlers to search a web page to make sure you have used heading tags appropriately and that the structure is in a way that easily readable.

3. How To Use Heading Tags Properly

   Headings are all about the structure of your content, before writing your content you need to know what it is you want to say and what you want to say about it.  Once you have overcome this step adding in the headings is quite simple, you want to ensure that you have the main heading (H1) and various sub headings (H2) that break up your content to make it reader friendly.  As already mentioned your heading tags should giver the reader a preview of what they are about to read and must contain specifically researched keywords that they are interested in.
   Be sure to always have a H1 tag on your web page, it is not necessary to have H2 tags although it is advisable – it is purely dependant on the length of content and what it is your are writing about.

4. How Are Sites Using Headings Incorrectly

   Believe it or not there are many website owners that are using heading tags incorrectly but are not aware of it.  Although when looking at the content at a glance it appears that they are using the correct H1 and H2 tags, they are in fact using lesser valued headings such H4 or H5 due to the way their CSS stylesheet is formatted.  This is mainly because they prefer the font size of the lesser valued headings and feel that the H1 or H2 headings are far too big.  This is obviously a bad mistake we see with many SEO consultants.
   Be sure to check that your heading tags are in check and if you appear to be in the same situation as many other website owners, you can change your CSS so that the style for your H1 and H2 tags is that of the lesser valued tags.

5. Are Headings The Be All And End All Of My SEO

   In short the answer is ‘No’, however if you are incorrectly using heading tags and are aware of it, then you are disregarding a very simple improvement to your SEO that can actually change the way you are ranked and improve your SERPs.  SEO is ever changing but if you can ensure that simple basics are up to date and in line with SEO considerations then you have one less thing to worry about when it comes to your SEO strategy.  Having your heading tags done correctly along with the other on-page SEO factors puts you on the right road to success with SEO.

We hope that this quick guide has given you a better insight to what heading tags are and why they are an important element in your SEO strategy.  If you need help managing  your SEO our technically skilled experts at Strategic SEO are happy to help.  Get in contact today for further information.