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.
Sequence of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) important?
-
Meaning heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) are a critical part of good on-page optimisation. Fair enough. It helps humans and bots make sense of a page's content.
3 questions regarding implementation of heading tags:
-
Should heading tags appear in sequence in the HTML code. I.e. H1 first, then H2 lower down, etc.?
-
Can the page contain more than one H1 tag?
-
Can the page contain multiple H2, H3, H4 tags?
-
-
Thanks!
I have some pages that contein h1, h2, h3 and h4. And I have other pages that dont't have h3 but they do have H2 and H4. Is it a seo mistake?
Thanks!
-
Yeah, should be fine.
-
I just listed about 6 H2 tags. That is ok right?
-
@vtialscom and @Barry Smith,
Thanks for your input. I agree with you both. Your resources are spot on Barry.
Cheers
-
-
Doesn't matter too much.
-
Yes.
Things to maybe think about though is HTML 5 and the
<header>tag for sections. Read - http://html5doctor.com/the-header-element/ - and - http://www.alistapart.com/articles/previewofhtml5
At the moment there will be some accessibility issues with screen readers when using multiple
s but that should get better.
Headers aren't a big ranking factor - http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-five-least-important-ranking-factors - http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-6
A vast majority of the web isn't coded correctly and the above points to it not really mattering, however, it's worth thinking about your structure and still only really using one
if you can.
</header>
-
-
In my experience, the sequence of the H tags didn't matter at all, but if the H1 tag doesn't deserve to be on top of the other heading tags, I would suspect something may be wrong with your page layout. I don't recommend more than one H1 tag.per page. The H2, H3 and H4 tags are meant for sub headers. If you don't use the header tags as intended, your pages may be flagged as spam, so use cautiously. I have seen so many webmasters unwittingly abusing these tags, like by putting their brand name in a H1 tag on every single 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
-
My website have h1 tags , but still crawlers can't find them?
crawlers can't crawl my meta description and h1 tags even when they are present.
On-Page Optimization | | Green_Beauty0 -
Issues with Multiple H1 tags on homepage?
Hi folks, My homepage has 3 identical H1 tags due to the fact that I have had to create individual hero images (with headings) for desktop, tablet and mobile. I couldn't get my theme to display the layout in exactly the way I wanted on each device without doing a specific hero image and tag for each device type. Does this have a major impact on my SEO? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | Veevlimike
Mike.0 -
Do Blog Tags affect SEO at all anymore?
We're trying to standardize the use of tags on our site amongst writers/editors, and I'm trying to come up a list of tags they can choose from to tag posts with - and telling them to use no more than 10 (absolute maximum) per post. We are also in the process of migrating to a new CMS, and have 8 defined categories that will all have their own landing page within our "News" section. TLDR: Do blog tags have any impact on SEO anymore? Are they solely meant to help users find articles related on popular topics, or does creating a tag for a popular topic help to improve organic visibility? Full Question: With the tag standardization, I want to make sure we're creating the most useful and effective tags; and the UX/SEO sides of my brain are conflicted. To my understanding, creating a tag about a high volume topic in an industry helps establish the website's relevance to Google/other search engines about that topic and improves overall relevance; but the tag feed page (ex: http://freshome.com/tag/home-protection/) isn't really meant for organic search visibility. So my other question is, is it worth it to noindex the tag pages in the robots.txt? Will that affect any benefit to increased relevance for Google (if there is any)? I'm interested to hear others' thoughts and suggestions. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | davidkaralisjr0 -
Alt Tags on multiple product images
Hi I work on SEO for an ecommerce site and wanted to find out how important it is to optimise all images with alt tags. We have alt tags in place, however have not optimised descriptions for the following example images: Front of cupboard Back of cupboard Side of cupboard etc Is this dangerous for SEO if these images all have the same alt tag? We have thousands of products so it would be a huge job to update these, but if it's crucial for SEO we can work through our priorities. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | BeckyKey0 -
Canonical tags in the body?
Hi there, Does anyone know if placing canonical tags in the body instead of the header of a page will still "take"? The system we are on means that making an editable header is no easy business and I was just wondering how big of a difference it makes to have it in a different area. Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | Whittie0 -
Quick H1 Above the Fold Question
I was wondering if the H1 for this page was alright even though it is below the fold: http://www.seniorplanning.org/assisted-living-phoenix-arizona/. Any suggestions/comments would be very helpful. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | JacobEdward0 -
Fewer keywords in title tag?
Hello, I have a title tag that includes three keywords and has a total of 59 characters. The third keyword is not very important. If I eliminated the third keyword, leaving the first two (for a total of 48 characters), would the ranking value of the first two keywords increase? Does including the third keyword dilute the value of the first two? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0 -
Is it better to include the secondary keyword or site name in a title tag?
When I add a site name to my title tag with long-tailed primary and secondary keywords the title tag is longer than 70 characters. I need to include all three parts, so what should I do? At 70 characters the site name is usually partially cut off. I do not want to get penalized by Google, but I need to include the site name to have consistency. I am using the format Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Site name
On-Page Optimization | | lwilkins0