Header Tags SEO

Using Header Tags SEO in your web page is very important as search engines look at the content of these tags when indexing and ranking your web page. Where you put your headlines and what they say will have a big effect on your rankings if you do it correctly.

Header Tags

These tags are defined as H1 ... H6 in your HTML code with H1 carrying the most importance and H6 the least. Including Header tags SEO in your content is extremely important as they help search engines prioritise the content of your page. By using these tags properly, you help to reinforce what your content is saying by highlighting exactly the phrases you want to be indexed for.

Writing Effective Headlines

Headlines on a page naturally draws the visitor´s eyes and therefore should be written to grab their attention. They should also accurately describe the content of that page. It may seem a good idea to write headlines which are stuffed with keywords that have nothing to do with the content on that page. This is not a good idea for two reasons. Firstly, search engines aren´t stupid, and secondly, visitors aren´t stupid. Your headlines should follow the theme of your page and promote your keyword phrases just like everything else does. Make your headings read natural but punchy. This is not the place for fluffy content.

Main Heading Tag (H1)

Where and how you use your tags is important. The H1 tag is the most important and should be used only once to define the heading of the page. The tag should be the top title of the page before your main body content. It should also contain your Primary Keywords as close to the front as you can.

Major Heading Tags (H2/H3)

The H2 and H3 tags are best used for subheadings to break up your content into logical sections. This is a good idea anyway as reading one huge block of content can be pretty exhausting. Breaking it up for visitors helps to keep their interest as they work through the content. These headings are where you want to front-load your Secondary keywords and any other keywords you think are important. If they look like they are stuffed with keywords then they probably are. Make your headings readable with your keywords and phrases front-loaded to add more weight to their prominence.

Minor Headings (H4/H5)

These don´t carry much weight as regards to SEO benefits go, but I think they are useful for smaller headings to break up the text within subheadings. If you are going to use a block of content, then this should have a heading. If you have a heading, then wrap header tags SEO around it to tell search engines this has some importance.

CSS Benefits

Wrapping optimised Header tags around your headings allows you to control their appearance on every page of your website easily from your CSS stylesheet. Using an external stylesheet for all your CSS definitions has several benefits and is good SEO Practice. It allows you to change the look of your entire website from one single file, and it removes the code from each web page thus increasing the content density while also pushing the content closer to the top of the HTML page: perfect!

SEO Expert Tip

Split your content with many eye-catching, keyword-rich and effective headlines, each of which is surrounded by header tags SEO.