"Heading 1" vs. "Title" Style for SEO
-
In Word, you can specify "Heading 1" text which Google presumably treats the same as an
HTML tag. Is there any benefit in using the "Title" style? Is it the equivalent of a web page's title?
-
No problem.
-
Beauty. Thanks Mike.
-
This article from Google Webmasters Central should solve it for you, Supporting Rel Canonical HTTP Headers
Mike
-
Thanks for the info! However, I'm still trying to figure out the best way to offer both web content as well as PDFs. Is there a way to offer a downloadable PDF but canonicalize it to the web content to avoid duplicate content issues?
-
Here is some additional great info on optimizing PDFs:
-
Ah! I see what you are saying.
No. The "title" style will not help you; however, H1-H6 in a PDF will still help you, along with the file name.
You can specify the Title, Author, and Subject on the Description tab under File > Properties in Acrobat.
That should help you optimize your PDF.
Mike
-
I've been using PDFs because it is the way we want to make downloadable content available for our users. In the past I created webpage versions of our content as well but I am worried about duplicate content issues.
The optimal scenario would be to have both the PDF and webpage but canonicalize the PDF to the page. Is that possible? Right now, I am only aware of the ability to pass canonicalization to the PDF from a webpage, not the other way around.
-
Yes this does make more sense but now I have to tell you how anti-PDF I am.
I absolutely hate PDFs. Sorry. Not trying to be rude and I'm sure you have your reasons, but is there anyway you can make this a webpage instead? What are the reasons, if you don't mind me asking.
Optimizing a PDF is not something I can advise you on but I can tell you that they don't work with things like H1 tags and hypertext markup...
-
Please see my response to Jesse. Hopefully I made things clear
-
I think there is some confusion. I am talking about using Word to create a PDF to be placed on our site. The PDFs rank fairly well but I want to be sure we are optimizing the titles with proper tags if possible.
Does that make more sense now?
So basically my question is: is there a way to define a line of text in a PDF / word doc to indicate to Google that it is the "h1" tag on the page and give it greater emphasis?
-
You will want to have your heading 1 style configured to use an
tag. You would not want to use <heading1>or any variation... you'd want to use
.
If you are using a WYSIWYG editor and you copy text from Word that is using a Heading 1 style, the code version should interpret that as
- which Google should see the code equivalent of heading 1.
Make sense?
Mike</heading1>
-
if the html tag is style="heading1" and it's adding something in there like that ( that wouldn't do anything, but as an example) then no. The tag needs to read
for google to register it as an h1 tag.
Honestly this would all be resolved if you weren't using Word. Why are you using Word?
-
That does make sense. Is that the case for the "Heading 1" style as well?
It makes sense to me that Google would look for the "Heading 1" style much like it would an
tag.
-
Hi David,
No there isn't any benefit.
The "Title" style is just that, a style. It will occur in the body section of your HTML and will not impact how Google ranks your page. It just changes the physical attributes of the text to look nice.
The "Title" tag is an element in HTML. It occurs in the head section of your HTML and will impact how Google ranks your page. This is one of the more powerful, if not the most powerful, on-page SEO elements.
Does that make sense?
Mike
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Bad to have "As Seen on" links sitewide
I've seen a lot of people saying that sidewide external links are a no-go. Does this also apply to links of a vanity variety? What I mean by this is "as seen on" links or links to awards given to the business? This intellectually seems okay to me, but I want to make sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot. Any evidence, case studies, anecdotal stories would be appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | Oren.0 -
How to fix Duplicate Page Title
I have so many Duplicate Page Title issue on my website. www.soobumimphotography.com Though I had to use NAME + Area + Photographer on every title page so ended up something like this San Antonio Sports Photographer | Soobumim Photography : San Antonio Wedding Photographers | Soobumim Photography http://www.soobumimphotography.com/chicago-cubs-at-houston-astros-mlb-soobumim-photography/ What's the best way to fix this problem? Should I delete them? Redirect? - to be honest, I don't know how. I am using Yoast plugin
On-Page Optimization | | BistosAmerica0 -
Difference between "And" and(!) "-"
I have a brand name "Smith and Jones". I am looking for the current best way to refer to the name in titles and text on my site. The manufactureres website is smithandjones.com . The H1 on their home page uses Smith & Jones. The 2 versions are used throughout their site. In a prior thread (http://www.seomoz.org/q/and-vs) the answer was to use nothing ie "smith jones". I was thinking that a "-" might be better since google says it tends to show a strong relationship between the 2 words. What do you think? Thanks Handcrafter
On-Page Optimization | | stephenfishman0 -
Title Tag Over Optimization
Hey, I've read that adding the company name to the title tag was a waste of space since the more words the less weight each one has, with all this over optimization preventive measures, should I rewrite the title tags format with company names? and if so should it be (company name): (naturally organized keywords) (naturally organized keyword) | (Company name). or can I keep it just naturally organized keywords Also I used to do (keyphrase) - (keyphrase) instead of commas, should I fix this? I asked this question on Randy's post http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-changes-every-seo-should-make-before-the-over-optimization-penalty-hits-whiteboard-friday but didn't really get an answer. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | nrv0 -
SEO for Image only posts
Let's say I have a post where I show 25 different wood textures. I start the post with a small paragraph and then I show several images of wood textures linked to an internal or external page. Since I don't use a text link, then I have to rely on alt tags. It would be very difficult to assign a different alt tag to so many similar images, and I guess there would be a risk of keyword stuffing (walnut wood, oak wood, etc). On the other side, if I assign the same tag to all images, then that clearly is keyword stuffing (alt=wood textures). This is just an example, but it applies to most of my posts. What do you think I should do with the alt tags? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | enriquef0 -
Titles for WP feeds and categories
SeoMoz comes back with duplicate title errors. However these duplicate errors are /feed pages in Wordpress. http://www.guardianpoolfence.com/choose-pool-fence/feed/ http://www.guardianpoolfence.com/how-to-choose-pool-fence/feed/ Why does this happening with only selected pages? I have many more posts but only these two are coming up with duplicate title errors. Also how do I set up meta descriptions for categories and archive pages for example www.guardianpoolfence.com/2011/07 I am not sure how these pages were created and how to give these individual titles. I mean, titles at all... Anyone?
On-Page Optimization | | Viktoria0 -
DUPLICATE PAGE TITLE ISSUE
Hi We have 25 pages with a download form on it. People arrive at the page through a ink with optimised anchor text which sits on the information pages. As there is no information on these pages we do not need them to be optimised so the developer has given all the download pages exactly the same page title. Although the pages in themselves are not significant would this effect the way Google viewed the whole site, and would it pay to make each one unique or doesn't it really matter. Alternatively, is there a better way to handle this? and if so would that ligate the benefit of the anchor text. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | PH2920 -
Using commas in the title tag?
Is there a disadvantage/advantage to using commas to separate words in the title tag. Which will be more effective as a title tag: "keyword1 keyword2 - Brand" OR "keyword1, keyword2 - Brand"?
On-Page Optimization | | Audiohype0