Website Search Engine Optimisation - Using The Heading or H Tags
A Beginners Guide by Brian Cotsen

The Heading or 'H' tag is one of the most important 'on page' factors to consider when optimising a website for the search engines.

The Heading tag is a little like the Title tag in that the website developer is able to tell the search engines a little bit more about what they will find on the web page and, if used effectively, emphasise the keywords that you want the search engines to register so that they return your web page when a search request is made by someone using your target keywords.

The Heading tag is a little like the announcements made at the top of a news bulletin.... lots of emphasis and attention grabbing sound or music.

 

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What is the Heading Tag?

Like the 'Title' and 'Description' tags, the 'Heading' tag was created in the early days of the internet to tell the search engine spiders a little more about what the page is all about.

Heading tags are little bits of code that look like this

<h1> </H1> or <H2> </H2> etc etc

By surrounding text with the Heading tags you tell the search engines that the words held within are important.

 

What do the different numbers mean?

This is text in H1 heading tag.

This is text in H2 heading tag.

This is text in H3 heading tag.

 

As you can see as the number gets bigger the text shrinks.

The H1 Heading tag carries the most emphasis and indicates that words enclosed within the H1 tag are more important than words in any other tag or body copy.

So it stands to reason to use the most important words, your keywords, in the text used within the H1 tag.

 

Where should you use the Heading tags?

H1 tags

These should be used at the very top of the visible page.

As a rule I recommend that you use them to emphasise the 'Heading' or 'Page Title'.

On this page I have enclosed the page title 'Website Search Engine Optimisation - Using The Heading Tags - A Beginners Guide' with H1 tags.

So in the coding of the page you would see this:

<h1>Website Search Engine Optimisation - Using The Heading or H Tags A Beginners Guide</h1>

The page title uses the most important keywords relevant to this page, 'Heading Tags' & 'Search Engine Optimisation'.

NOTE:

Only use the H1 tag Once on any web page. Using the tag more than once will confuse the search engine spiders and could be seen as an attempt to spam or fool the search engines by trying to exaggerate keywords or text on your web pages.

H2, H3 etc

These tags can be used for subheadings within the body of the web page, perhaps at the beginning of important sections on the page.

You can use H2, H3 etc tags more than once on web pages without fear of being penelised for potential spamming.

 

What should you put in the Heading tags?

The most important factor to remember is that the Heading tags surround actual content that humans will see on your web page.

Your number one concern will be to create an attention grabbing Headline or Title to your web page. One that will pique the interest or curiosity of your visitors and get them to read the rest of your page.

Ideally you should try to include one or two of your most important keywords/ search terms in the heading tag, but don't do this at the expence of a good attention catching headline or page title.

Remember always write for your human readers and not for the search engines.

Lets continue our look at the factors that effect SEO by discussing your website's 'Content' & 'Copy' in relation to Search Engine Optimisation.

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