H2s & H3s for Category Navigation
-
Hi all. I am wondering how best to format a category navigation menu. Currently I don't think we're using H2s correctly on our website.
Am I right to think that the top level category e.g. Games should be formatted as an H2 and the sub-categories underneath this should be formatted as H3s (to show a hierarchy)?
Is there a limit on how many H2s and H3s you should use? Obviously only one H1 per page.
Thanks in advance
Paul
-
There are mixed opinions on the use of them by Google. I happen to think it's zero for all of them except H1 and I'm not convinced even of them.. There is a case for H1 tags and keywords in them but I've ranked pages without strong H1 tags too.
It will depend on the design of your site but typically header tags are bold and slightly larger than the standard text on your page. You can check your websites files and change them around if you want to change the sizes. Think about reading a text book. It's nice to have the chapter titles one size, the sections another size and subsections another size. It's for your users. You want to make sure they can easily find what they want on your page. When we code sites, we generally indent too. That's not for Google, it's for us to find things faster. Same concept.
-
By the way, I didn't realise that using a header tag actually changed the look of the text? I thought it was simply used in the back end to signify hierarchy to Google? So if we use H2-H6 we would be changing the look of the menu items as well?
-
Thank you for the advice.
-
Your first thought is correct. You should use them to show hierarchy of content.
Directly from Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (page 20)
"Heading tags (not to be confused with the HTML tag or HTTP
headers) are used to present structure on the page to users. There are
six sizes of heading tags, beginning with, the most important, and
ending with
, the least important (1).
Since heading tags typically make text contained in them larger than
normal text on the page, this is a visual cue to users that this text
is important and could help them understand something about
the type of content underneath the heading text. Multiple heading
sizes used in order create a hierarchical structure for your content,
making it easier for users to navigate through your document."There isn't a limit to any of the header tags as far as I know. You are correct that most of us suggest that you only use one H1 tag. I generally don't put a limit on a page of the number of H2, etc tags I use. Remember, you are building your pages for your users and not for Google. Use your header tags to help people navigate information on your page.
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
-
Do You Add City Name & Key Word For Every Page?
Hello, I'm new to SEO but feel I have a decent grasp on it. However, I had a question pertaining to key words and using my city name in it. For instance, if I am using the key word "herniated disc treatment" do I need to put in my city name behind it or does google recognize that I am already in my city area because of my geo tagging and having it listed on the footer of my site? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -Scott
On-Page Optimization | | slgray0 -
Text that appears when hovering over navigation tabs
Hi, I have a Wordpress website and want to delete or edit the text that appears when I hover over my navigation tabs. In my case, the text is always the same as the page title, but I don't know where to edit it separately. When I change the title of a page that is in the navigation, the text that appears changes too. So the general setting is that this text is the same as the page title. Does somebody have an idea where to edit this? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Mat_C0 -
Category Page Content
Hey Mozzers, I've recently been doing a content audit on the category and sub-category pages on our site. The old pages had the following "profile" Above The Fold
On-Page Optimization | | ATP
Page Heading
Image Links to Categories / Products
Below the Fold
The rest of the Image Links to Categories / Products
600 words+ of content duplicated from articles, sub categories and products My criticisms of the page were
1. No content (text) above the fold
2. Page content was mostly duplicated content
3. No keyword structure, many pages competed for the same keywords and often unwanted pages outranked the desired page for the keyword. I cleaned this up to the following structure Above The Fold
H1 Page Heading 80-200 Word of Content (Including a link to supporting article)
H2 Page Heading (Expansion or variance of the H1 making sure relevant) 80-200 150 Words of Content
Image Links to Categories / Products
Below the Fold
The rest of the Image Links to Categories / Products The new pages are now all unique content, targeted towards 1-2 themed keywords. I have a few worries I was hoping you could address. 1. The new pages are only 180-300 words of text, simply because that is all that is needed to describe that category and provide some supporting information. the pages previously contained 600 words. Should I be looking to get more content on these pages?
2. If i do need more content, It wont fit "above the fold" without pushing the products and sub categories below the fold, which isn't ideal. Should I be putting it there anyway or should I insert additional text below the products and below the fold or would this just be a waste.
3. Keyword Structure. I have designed each page to target a selction of keywords, for example.
a) The main widget pages targets all general "widget" terms and provides supporting infromation
b) The sub-category blue widget page targets anything related and terms such as "Navy Widgets" because navy widgets are a type of blue widget etc"
Is this keyword structure over-optimised or exactly what I should be doing. I dont want to spread content to thin by being over selective in my categories Any other critisms or comment welcome0 -
How To Change Wordpress Category Title
My categories are indexed and I want to change the category page title. At present it just defaults to the category name but I want to set a different page title. For example I want the category to be 'Motor Cars' but I want the category page title to be 'Buy Motor Cars - New And Used'. How can I do this?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Ecommerce - how many clicks from the home page should categories be
My client has about 300 products in 20 categories with a lot of overlap. How many clicks from the home page should we keep the products? We're not doing pagination. I'd been told several years ago that all products should be 2 clicks or less from the home page. Is this true today? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW1 -
Seomoz.org Category and Tags practice
Hello, I have been checking seomoz sourcecode and architecture these days in order to learn and to apply it in my site but I havent managed to find "tags" at all. Just the "Posts by Categories" on the right sidebar. Is this the only way you are categorising content? In this case, the only way spiders have to find your content is via these category archive pages and the general sitemap? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | antorome0 -
Page Analyzer & Page 1
I follow the recommended things from the Page Analyzer or Grader, and I am like position #40, so how do I get to page #1 as a minimum.
On-Page Optimization | | sansonj0 -
Navigation for search
We are getting ready to launch a site that has great navigation for users, but it is not so great for search engines. As long as we are ethical about it, does anyone see a downside to detecting a bot user agent and displaying different nav to it? I suppose some could consider it cloaking, but I noticed amazon uses this strategy and they don't seem to be getting a big penalty lol. We are not going to do anything shady with it, just offer the bot a different way to access our content. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | altecdesign0