{"id":18551,"date":"2020-10-22T13:43:30","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T20:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vdigitalservices.com\/?p=18551"},"modified":"2024-01-18T16:25:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T23:25:26","slug":"what-is-h1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vdigitalservices.com\/what-is-h1\/","title":{"rendered":"What are H1 Tags and Why are they Important to SEO?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Today, we\u2019re going to dive into a topic that you might think you already know well: the H1 tag. But even if you\u2019re familiar with the basic purpose of H1 tags, you might be surprised to learn that they\u2019re far more powerful than you\u2019d think.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For instance, did you know that HTML H1 tags have the potential to boost your search rankings and extend your brand\u2019s online reach? If you\u2019re scratching your head, you aren\u2019t alone \u2013 outside of SEO professionals, plenty of people don\u2019t know how important H1 tags can be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But after you\u2019re done reading, you can be one of the few that enjoys the advantage of an insider\u2019s understanding of how H1 tags can work in your favor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In simplest terms, the H1 is a specific HTML element (or tag) that is used to indicate a heading on a website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s break that down for the HTML beginners:<\/span><\/p>\n HTML has become an increasingly flexible language in recent years, so a webpage\u2019s title is no longer necessarily guaranteed to be within an H1 tag. Even so, H1 tags remain a widely-used tag for coding the title of a page.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You can use H1 and h1 interchangeably because HTML isn\u2019t case sensitive. To a web browser, both an uppercase H and lowercase h mean the same thing, which means you can use either in coding.<\/span><\/p>\n It might seem fair to assume that H1 tags and title tags are interchangeable \u2013 but that\u2019s not exactly the case. Even though H1 tags are commonly used when coding the title of a webpage, there\u2019s an entirely separate HTML title tag that stands apart from any header tags. So, if we\u2019re going to get technical, H1s don\u2019t have to be used for a webpage\u2019s title.<\/span><\/p>\n That being said, <\/span>best practices for SEO<\/span><\/a> encourage making the title tag match your H1 tag, with the addition of the title of your website. For example, let\u2019s say you\u2019re working with a blog article that\u2019s titled \u201c101 New Streaming Series to Check Out this Summer,\u201d and your website is called \u201cEntertainment Today, Tonight, and Tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Your title tag would be, \u201c101 New Streaming Series to Check Out this Summer \u2013 Entertainment Today, Tonight, and Tomorrow.\u201d Alternatively, you can use a pipe (\u201c|\u201d) in place of the dash to split up the article title and the website name.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a quick experiment to show you this principle in action:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Do a quick internet search for the first popular keyword or phrase that comes to mind. For example, imagine you\u2019re shopping for a new dining table.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When you plug that phrase into the search bar, your results are going to largely be made up of titles that are formatted according to the standard mentioned above (like \u201cDining Room Tables | Your Neighborhood Furniture Store\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Notice that it\u2019s the title tag contents that will come up in the search results, not what you put between the H1 tags. The H1 tags serve their role on the webpage itself, communicating the general topic of the content it precedes. This makes it an important tool for creating a high-quality user experience \u2013 but we\u2019ll talk about that more a bit later.<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019ve now learned that in an HTML document, the H1 tag is a markup. But what does that mean?<\/span><\/p>\n Markup is any element within the HTML coding that is interpreted by the browser, not just displayed. Put simply, markup tells the browser how the associated content is supposed to be formatted. Markup is made up of specific elements that are surrounded by the less-than (\u201c<\u201d) and more-than (\u201c>\u201d) symbols.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example, in HTML, the H1 tag looks like this \u201c<h1>,\u201d so the browser doesn\u2019t display the actual \u201ch1\u201d text onscreen. Instead, the tag signals that the text that follows should be formatted as instructed. Then, h1 is repeated as an ending tag to tell the browser that the formatted text string is complete (\u201c<\/h>\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The backslash is what makes it an ending, or closing, tag. Without a closing tag, the browser assumes that you intended for the entire page to be displayed with the H1 formatting.<\/span><\/p>\n In full, the markup and text string would look like this: \u201c<h1>101 New Streaming Series to Check Out this Summer<\/h>\u201d. In many cases, that text would be displayed in large lettering. However, the formatting can vary depending on the styling you choose for your page \u2013 another topic we\u2019ll get into later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019d like to see H1 tags in action, you can easily view them in the code of just about any webpage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s how:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As we covered earlier, the actual formatting of an H1 tag can vary from site to site. That\u2019s because each website is built using a unique stylesheet, which is a chunk of code that dictates how the text will be formatted on a page.<\/span><\/p>\n Using styling, you can instruct the browser to display the content within an H1 tag however you\u2019d like. For example, you could decide to style the tag in bright red, 24-point font. Or, you could go for something understated, changing the style to display the text in 23-point black, bold italics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some web pages embed the tag styling within the webpage itself, placing it at the top in the <head> section. But for the most part, you can expect the styling to be externalized. This means that there is a separate stylesheet file that lives outside the HTML document, most commonly named style.css. The \u201cCSS\u201d file extension represents \u201ccascading stylesheet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n If you make changes to the .css, you can alter the way the H1 is displayed on your website. From the font family, color, and size to the margins and line spacing, it\u2019s all accessible within the stylesheet file.<\/span><\/p>\n SEO, or search engine optimization, is a vital part of any digital marketing strategy. If you\u2019re new to SEO, think of it as one of the most complex but valuable tools you have in your content marketing arsenal. SEO is far too multi-faceted to cover here (though we have other SEO-focused resources and a full SEO team ready to leap into action), but we are going to talk about the role that H1 tags play in SEO.<\/span><\/p>\n For years, H1 tags were considered the most SEO-valuable heading of them all. In fact, during the early 2000s, it was impossible to rank in search results at all if you didn\u2019t have keywords in your headings. But now, a growing number of SEO specialists are learning that it\u2019s not quite that simple.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While it\u2019s safe to say that your H1 tags can still affect overall ranking to some degree, Google has gotten considerably more intelligent in recent years. According to an article from the <\/span>Search Engine Journal<\/span><\/a>, Google\u2019s Senior Webmaster and Trends Analyst have this to say about headings:<\/span><\/p>\n [blockquote]It\u2019s very easy to\u2026 get pulled into lots of theoretical discussions on what the optimal headings should be\u2026 We do use headings when it comes to search. But we use them to better understand the content on the pages\u2026 [If] we have this big chunk of text or we have this big image and there\u2019s a heading above that, therefore, maybe this heading applies to this chunk of text or this image.<\/span><\/i>[\/blockquote]<\/p>\n [blockquote]So, it\u2019s not so much [that] there are five keywords in these headings, therefore this page will rank for these keywords but more[so], here\u2019s some more information about that piece of text or about that image on that page. And that helps us to better understand how to kind of frame that piece of text, how to frame the images that you have within those blocks. And with that, it\u2019s a lot easier to find\u2026 the right queries that lead us to these pages.<\/span><\/i>[\/blockquote]<\/p>\n Essentially, this means that Google interprets headings as they are intended to be read by the user \u2013 that is, as an indication of the topic that follows. The text (and keywords) within H1 and other headings are no longer as critically important of a ranking factor as it was several years ago, and H1 tags don\u2019t necessarily hold more weight than other headings, either.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, heading tags are still extremely useful for organizing information into a hierarchical structure (for example, the content of your H3 header should be a subtopic of H2). But that\u2019s less of an issue of ranking, and more a principle of web document organization.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Just because the way that heading tags should be used has changed, that doesn\u2019t mean that you can\u2019t take steps to use H1 tags to improve your overall ranking. Ultimately, the goal of an H1 tag should be to help the user (and by extension, Google and other search engines) understand the content topic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, it\u2019s still useful to use relevant keywords to build your H1 tags, because there\u2019s an overlap between the content topic and the best-fit keywords (or at least, there should be). For example, for your blog article, \u201cNew Streaming Series to Check Out this Summer,\u201d \u201cnew streaming series\u201d is a pivotal keyword.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And on top of that, \u201cnew streaming series\u201d clearly communicates to the user what they are about to read. In terms of search engine rankings, that\u2019s a win-win.<\/span><\/p>\n Because the use of relevant keywords has allowed both Google and the user to better understand your intended focus and content, it\u2019s more likely that the right user will arrive at your page at the right time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This boosts not just the user experience (which is a core factor for ranking), but the likelihood that your content will be connected with interested users via their related search engine results.<\/span><\/p>\n As SEO becomes more about optimizing for users, not just search engines, recommendations for improving rankings have also shifted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Google will assess your website to determine whether or not it\u2019s user-friendly, easy to navigate, and based around original, engaging content that ties into the user\u2019s query. When your content hits these marks, users will continue to traffic your site again and again \u2013 and the payoff is improved search rankings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Trying to \u201cbeat the system\u201d and trick Google into rewarding you with good rankings is a move that\u2019s bound to fail, so don\u2019t even bother. It might seem like manipulating a search engine on a technical level is acceptable, but Google is smarter than that. Not only will it not be fooled by your attempt, but it can also penalize you with worse rankings \u2013 because when it comes down to it, you aren\u2019t making the user experience your first priority.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, if there\u2019s no foolproof technical formula for SEO, how are you supposed to create the best H1 tags possible? Your best bet is to approach every aspect of optimization, including H1 tags, with this in mind: your website should deliver exactly what users are looking for.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s how:<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s technically possible to incorporate multiple H1 tags on a page, but it\u2019s generally not recommended. For the user, it can create clutter and make the overall page organization confusing. For the search engine algorithms, the effect is similar: confusing and messy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Each time you add another tag, it waters down the SEO value and makes your content focus unclear. If there are H1 tags scattered across your page, Google won\u2019t be able to identify the one that contains your target keywords \u2013 and even worse, your users won\u2019t know which points are most important.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All of that can be avoided when you use one H1 tag per page. In contrast, Google doesn\u2019t have any issue with the use of multiple H2 tags. So, if your content has numerous subheaders, feel free to sprinkle H2 tags into your heart\u2019s content (where it makes sense, of course!). Multiple H2 tags are an effective, high-quality method for organizing content, so they\u2019re expected in first-class content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even longtail keywords can fit into a solitary H1 tag, so even when you have just a single tag, you still keep a considerable amount of freedom. However, it\u2019s best to aim for 20-70 characters in total.<\/span><\/p>\n There are a few reasons that setting a maximum of 70 characters (and a minimum of 20) is a good idea:<\/span><\/p>\n The actual styling of your H1 text is also important because it can have a pivotal effect on how a user perceives the page as a whole. If you\u2019re working with WordPress, the styling is likely already built into your selected theme. Otherwise, you can dip into the HTML to make some adjustments as you see fit.<\/span><\/p>\n Open up an existing or drafted article (or create a quick test piece), then take a closer look at the H1 tags. Look for these key characteristics:<\/span><\/p>\n Try to see the page from the perspective of a first-time viewer, specifically one that falls within your target audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Does the design appeal to you? Or does it leave you feeling confused or unsure about the content you\u2019re looking at? The goal should be to style H1 tags to make them both visually and organizationally intentional.<\/span><\/p>\n Most likely, you have an important keyword contained in your H1 tag. If so, resist the urge to stuff it throughout the rest of the content, because there are few things that Google hates more \u2013 especially for H1 tag SEO.<\/span><\/p>\n It used to be commonplace to see websites that repeated keywords to a ridiculous extent, in an attempt to earn higher search engine rankings by faking relevance. But as we\u2019ve already established, Google has grown by leaps and bounds, so old-fashioned \u201cSEO-hack\u201d methods no longer fly.<\/span><\/p>\n You can certainly use that keyword throughout the content, but it should be done naturally. Don\u2019t force keywords into awkward spaces. Your readers will be annoyed, and your rank will suffer; it\u2019s just that simple.<\/span><\/p>\n The easiest way to conceptualize user intent is to think of it as what a user expects to see when they click on your webpage in the search engine results. What are they hoping to find, in terms of the content that awaits on your page?<\/span><\/p>\n The answer should be an easy one because it should be found directly in the H1 tag (and by extension, the title tag). Does your H1 tag (and title tag) follow through on the content that it promises to deliver? If not, there\u2019s a problem that needs to be resolved.<\/span><\/p>\n Going back to our example article, \u201cNew Streaming Series to Check Out this Summer,\u201d there are a few key elements that address the concept of user intent. In the search results, the title tells the user that at the link, they can expect to find information about:<\/span><\/p>\n While the title and corresponding H1 tag do a fairly decent job of addressing user intent, there is room for improvement. To make it clear that the content is relevant to <\/span>this <\/span><\/i>summer, you can make one quick edit: \u201cNew Streaming Series to Check Out in Summer 2020.\u201d Now, the user knows that your page has the most up-to-date content available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n User intent is so important because it has a major effect on your bounce rate, which in turn, serves as a ranking signal to Google. If a user doesn\u2019t quickly come back to Google\u2019s search results after visiting your page, the bounce rate is low \u2013 they didn\u2019t \u201cbounce\u201d right back to Google, and that\u2019s a good thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But if they arrived at your page to discover that the content didn\u2019t match up with their intent, the user is likely to make a rapid return to the search results page. Then, the bounce rate is high, and your page can be demoted in the ranked results for that particular keyword.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is yet another example of SEO and user experience going hand in hand. If your H1 tag, title tag, and content are all in clear alignment with your keyword of choice, users that are searching for that keyword are more likely to click your link and be satisfied with what your page provides.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And when the users are happy, Google (and your rankings) is too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now that you\u2019ve mastered the basics of the HTML H1 tag, you might be feeling more comfortable than ever when it comes to SEO. And while that\u2019s definitely a win, creating and implementing an <\/span>SEO strategy<\/span><\/a> is still something that\u2019s usually better left to the experts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n SEO \u2013 and digital marketing in general \u2013 is both an art and a science. Luckily, the V Digital Services team is full of talented people that are ready to tackle your digital marketing strategy and make it stronger and more effective than ever. Whether it\u2019s H1 tag optimization that has you puzzled, or you\u2019re ready for a total strategy redo, V Digital Services has you covered.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat Does H1 Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n
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H1 vs. h1<\/span><\/h2>\n
Are H1 Tags and Title Tags the Same Thing?<\/span><\/h3>\n
How the H1 Tag Works in an HTML Document\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n
How to Find the H1 Tag in a Page\u2019s HTML Code<\/span><\/h2>\n
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How Styling Comes into Play<\/span><\/h2>\n
How are H1 Tags and SEO Connected?<\/span><\/h2>\n
How to Optimize H1 Tags for Better Rankings<\/span><\/h3>\n
Best Practices for H1 Tags<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Use just one H1 tag per webpage.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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Limit Yourself to 20- 70 characters in a tag.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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Seize the chance to stand out from the crowd.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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Stay away from keyword stuffing.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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Consider user intent.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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Let V Digital Services Help You Navigate Digital Marketing with Confidence\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n