Search engines are constantly looking for the most meaningful pages in the SERPs. There are various SEO ranking factors that search engines look at when ranking the pages.
One such important ranking factor is the heading tag of the page.
This weight is great for pages that have many related search terms in the heading tag. This, the search engine optimization of a web page should have a major factor as the relevant header tag.
So, what is a header tag, and how to write compelling header tags for your webpage? In this article, we have shared a detailed guide on Html header tags and how to use them to get better visibility and rankings?
Header Tags: What they are and how to use them!
Header tags are the HTML element used to create a header for your web page. They are often used to create a menu or navigation bar for a website. Header tags are also used to add style information to your page.
Header tags are used in almost every website created on the internet, whether it is a personal blog, shop homepage or even an e-commerce site looking to get more customers. These tags are also known to webmasters as heading tags or header tags.
Header tags structure your page and hence they are differentiated as h1-h6.
There are numerous other types of HTML tags that can be used as part of webpage coding. However, they all follow a standard format that establishes their purpose and structure so that there is no confusion regarding the nuances within HTML tags.
Out of these, the most important header tag is the h1 tag and the least important one is h6. h in h1, h2, and others stand for heading element.
The HTML element represents introductory content, typically a group of introductory or navigational aids.
Furthermore, in HTML coding, the hierarchy follows the order h1, h2, h3, and so on...
Here is how each header tag can be used in the content:
h1 heading: This heading tag is the title of your post. Using keywords in your page title will make your post more SEO-optimized.
h2: h2 is one of the most used heading tags in a document. The best practice is to use semantic keywords in different subheadings.
h3: These are sections that explain the points made in the H2 further. They can be used to format lists or bullet points.
h4: These subsections clarify or divide the points made in h3.
In general, it is recommended to use only one h1 tag on a web page unless it's only html5 pages.
What are H1 tags?
An H1 tag is the most important heading in a page or post. It tells you what the page or post's title is. Today, the H1 tag is used by everyone to display the title or heading of their own pages.
The HTML global attributes are the defining attributes of an element. It is a group of global attributes that do not belong to any particular named element and can be shared across all elements.
This has become a very important SEO ranking element among other things as it is the first thing that the search engine bots will crawl.
This header tag defines the structural hierarchy of your blog post. So, don't make the mistake of using H1 tag merely as the designing element of your web page. It is in fact more than that.
H1 stage of your web page is like the title of a book.
At first glance, it would be easy to say that the H1 tag is an element used when you want a web page's 'title'.
Google uses h1 in place of title tags wherever relevant.
How many header tags are supported by HTML?
By default, there are 6 header tags permitted by the HTML standard. These H1 through to h6 can define the hierarchy of a webpage and also provide more information about what appearance visitors should expect from your web page.
Your headers should stick to the main topic of what you are writing about because they can help the reader find your main points and guide them through the flow of content.
Now, let's talk about how heading tags are going to affect SEO.
Header Tags and SEO
Now, the SEO industry is still divided on this question- Do header tags impact SEO?
Some say yes and some might say, it does but only a little effect.
Google considers heading tags as a user-friendly thing because this helps in formatting the content. To improve user experience and make your page SEO-friendly, header tags should always be used in order.
Header tags improve the readability and improve the SEO of your web page.
For example, the page header title is always h1 followed by the next subheading- h2.
If there are other bullet points or sections of text, it is better to use the h3 tag and h4 further. However, if the subheading is h4 and its bullet point of a small section is h2, that is likely to break the page hierarchy.
To make your content more search engine friendly, it is recommended to spy on your competitors and check for their subheadings.
Refer to the example below, for the main keyword 'iPhone 13 Review', the total number of header tags is 14 for the top 10 search engine results.
Now, the use of 14 header tags wouldn't guarantee any good rankings but that's an average of what most of the top pages are doing.
To see their page hierarchy and header tags, we would dig deeper into the competitor's tab.
For example, the first SERP result has the following page structure. This page mostly comprises H2 tags with the semantic use of keywords.
The second example would give you a more clear idea about what heading tags should you use for the sub sections in your content.
How to add header tags in HTML?
You don't need to be technically savvy or an expert in coding to add header tags in HTML. In visual HTML, the header text is wrapped between the tags.
For example, if a header text- 'The Guide to eCommerce' is given h1 tag, the HTML code will look as follows:
<h1> The Guide to eCommerce </h1>
The good thing is that you don't even need to do this with a blogging platform like Wordpress or a rich content editor like Scalenut.
Every time, you want to add the header tags while writing, you don't need to dig to the source code or HTML codes to do that. The easy-to-use text editor has a selection of header tags from h1 to h6 and paragraph selection.
The best part- these tags would work on every blogging platform. You can paste the text as written on this text editor to your blogging platform to save time on editing and formatting the content.
Conclusion
Headings are an important part of any website's structure. While it is not necessary to include more than one h1 tag on a page, doing so will make search engines think that the page is trying to rank for keywords in this particular area.
Thus, the best practice is to follow what the top competitors for your main keyword are doing. Using Scalenut Assistant, you can save time figuring out what header tags the top pages are using.
Scalenut gives a drop-down list of the header tags for all the top competing pages.
You can either use the same header tag or change it with other semantic keywords to structure your page. So whether you need help with using the right header tags or to page structure, Scalenut is here to help!
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