Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
WordPress Category page title h1 or h2
-
Hi friends, I know this is a minor technical change, but we are in an extremely competitive market and I don't want to have any points against us. On our WordPress Category pages i.e. http://www.domain.com/category/�tegory-title%/
I looked at the code behind the the Title of the category page, which is "Browsing: %Category Title%" The code is an h2. I look at the posts in the category archive below, and those are also h2's. The theme preview is here and you can click on Entertainment - Reviews to see exactly what I'm referring to - http://themeforest.net/item/smartmag-responsive-retina-wordpress-magazine/full_screen_preview/6652608
I changed the code for the "Browsing: %Category Title%" to h1, which I believe is more consistent and standard formatting.
1. Is this a correct technical on-page optimization?
2. Would it be beneficial to remove "Browsing"?
-
The likelihood of this change making a + / - difference in the rank of your category page is very low.
At best, the weight an H1 has in on-page SEO falls solidly into the bottom half of all factors affecting page rank. Further, based on the theme preview, there is very little on this template to generate search rank in the first place. The vast majority of the content is dynamic, and though it's related by category, the actual snippets of copy associated to the content this page touts aren't topically connected.
Given the page's utility, which is to coalesce category-related content, your priority for this page should be to ensure that it does its job, which is to move visitors through to actual content. You don't want a page like this to become a bottleneck. Without changes to the template that result in engines having more unique information about this page, that's the best you should hope for here, IMO.
The two primary, static elements on this page are the main heading and page title (there may be others that don't change). They should be tied together in terms of what they communicate about the page. Regarding the removal of the word "Browsing", its presence or lack thereof will have very little, if any, impact to page rank. In terms of how this word choice affects the page's key performance aspect (to get people to other content), it pretty canned, but that's just personal opinion.
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
-
Homepage Slider How to Handle H1 and H2's
Working on a site with a slider on the homepage, I dislike them but owner wants to keep in place. Currently, the slider has 4 slides with different images but the same text, so the slider has 4 slides with 4 identical H2 tags and accompanying text. There is no H1 tag on the page at all. It seems to me that a better solution would be to change the first slide to be H1 (with the target keyword) and rework the text in the other slides as H2 tags to appeal to the user. This does mean that the H1 and H2 tags in the slider would be styled the same. Is this a sensible approach?
Web Design | | GrouchyKids1 -
Do Wordpress sites outrank SquareSpace?
I was a big fan of Wordpress. I used it for 10 years. However, because I run a very small business, the constant upkeep needed on WP in the end started to frustrate me in the end, so I moved to SquareSpace. However, I am beginning to question my decision, as one of my sites is struggling really badly, and I mean badly. The other sites are okay. So I started asking around, and most people are saying there shouldn't be a difference. A few people have said their Wordpress sites always outranks their SquareSpace sites. Then I read what Rand Fishkin said in the below Twitter thread, now I am even more confused. I am very reluctant to move to Wordpress, its just so much hassle. But at the same time, if a site doesn't get much traffic then it's useless. https://twitter.com/drew_pickard/status/991659074134556673 https://twitter.com/randfish/status/991974456477278209 Please let me know your thoughts and experience.
Web Design | | RyanUK0 -
How to fix non-crawlable pages affected by CSS modals?
I stumbled across something new when doing a site audit in SEMRUSH today ---> Modals. The case: Several pages could not be crawled because of (modal:) in the URL. What I know: "A modal is a dialog box/popup window that is displayed on top of the current page" based on CSS and JS. What I don't know: How to prevent crawlers from finding them.
Web Design | | Dan-Louis0 -
Location of body text on page - at top or bottom - does it matter for SEO?
Hi - I'm just looking at the text on a redesigned homepage. They have moved all the text to the very bottom of the page (which is quite common with lots of designers, I notice - I usually battle to move the important text back up to the top). I have always ensured the important text comes at the top, to some extent - does it matter where on the page the text comes, for SEO? Are there any studies you can point me to? Thanks for your help, Luke
Web Design | | McTaggart2 -
Wordpress - redirecting tags
I just ran a webmaster tool from Yoast SEO premium and notice I have a lot of problems with tags (restricted-robots-txt) For example : http://www.soobumimphotography.com/tag/wedding-group-photo/ Do I have to redirect to http://www.soobumimphotography.com/wedding-group-photo/ Should I do this to each and every posts Thank you
Web Design | | soobumim0 -
From Google Sites to Wordpress - Anyone Ventured this SEO terrain?
We have a few sites in Google Sites - and they are ugly! We have a majority (40+) of websites in Wordpress. But we have a few websites just stuck on Google Sites, and since Google won't let you fully edit the HTML, add scripts, or implement any technology since 2000, we want to move. The sad problem - the Google sites are ranking well. We rank well in Manhattan, Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia. The problem is - the sites do not give much room for growth - and the bounce rate is high because they are so ugly. Has Anyone moved from Google sites to Wordpress? Should we just stay with Google and bite the ugly bullet? My fear is that these sites will not allow for growth. It is hard to update them and even harder to make them look nice. To get a sample - beware: www.counselingphiladelphia.com Even another reason to leave: The slider is non-semantic and terrible SEO. Google won't allow a slider script with tags and a hrefs, so the only way to implement a slider is through a Google Docs Presentation that keeps sliding. I know - terrible SEO (#donthate) but we needed something. Any advice and thoughts would help! Thanks Mozzers!
Web Design | | _Thriveworks0 -
Indexing Dynamic Pages
Hi, I am having an issues among others, regarding indexing dynamic pages. Our website, www.me-by-melia, was just put live and I am concerned the bottom naviagtion pages (http://www.me-by-melia.com/#store, http://www.me-by-melia.com/#facebook, etc) will not be indexed and create duplicate pages. Also, when you open these pages in a new tab, it takes you to homepage. The website was created in HTML5. Please advise.
Web Design | | Melia0 -
Landing pages vs internal pages.
Hey everyone I have run into a problem and would greatly appreciate anyone that could weigh in on it. I have a web client that went to an outside vendor for marketing. The client asked me to help them target some keywords and since I am new to the SEO world I have proceeded by researching the best keywords for the client. I found 6 that see excellent monthly searches. I then registered the .com and or .net domain names that match these words. I then started building landing pages that make reference to the keyword and then have links to his site to get more info. My customer sent the first of these sites to the marketer and he says I am doing things all wrong. He says rather then having landing pages like this I should just point the domain names at internal pages to the website. He also says that I should not have different looks for the landing pages from the main site and that I should have the full site menu on each landing page. I wanted to here what everyone here has to say about the pros and cons of the way to do this cause the guy giving the advice to me has a lower ranking site then I do and I have only started working on getting my site ranked this year. He has atleast according to him been doing this forever. Thanks, Ron
Web Design | | bsofttech0