Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. H2s & H3s for Category Navigation

    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.

    H2s & H3s for Category Navigation

    On-Page Optimization
    2
    5
    2891
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • kevinliao
      kevinliao last edited by

      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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • DarinPirkey
        DarinPirkey @kevinliao last edited by

        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.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • kevinliao
          kevinliao @DarinPirkey last edited by

          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?

          DarinPirkey 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • kevinliao
            kevinliao @DarinPirkey last edited by

            Thank you for the advice. 😄

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DarinPirkey
              DarinPirkey last edited by

              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)

              http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

              "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.

              kevinliao 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • JamesDavison

                Value of using spaces or no spaces on product category page varient keywords

                keywords page grader several search terms category page

                Hello, all fellow Mozzers,
                I have taken over a project and this account, so can't change the username according to MOZ.🙃 We run an eCommerce website, and to me, some of the content is conflicting as some pages have more information content than what I would put in a commerce page, but this is how the boss wants it to work, personally, I would separate the content out.
                The page I'm working on:
                https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/tyres/205-70-14.html
                and this is an example of the rest of these types of pages, I will be tackling:
                https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/tyres/125-15.html I was tasked to improve SEO ranking, when using the MOZ page grader I had a score of 24 out of 27 83% SEO score and 3-page problems. 7th position in Google for the search term 205/70 R14 As it is a generic product listing page, It was pointless to add to the URL and the Internal links I can't reduce as these are links to products, so I went to reduce the
                keyword stuffing and making the page content more natural, this improved the page to 25 out of 27, 87% SEO score and 2-page problems. Improvement to 3rd position in Google, but he wants to chase 1st place to be above his competitors, which is fair enough. It turns out that in the past, they have used this type of page to try and get a high ranking for several search terms, as it is a different variation on a tyre size terms are:
                205/70 R14, 205/70R14, 205/70 R 14
                205/70 X 14, 205/70X14, 205/70 X14
                and so on for all the different ways you can search for this tyre size. He is also convinced Google will see these as different search terms, and while I agree to an extent, this causes Keyword Stuffing on the page, which in turn was harming the rankings. Each product listed on the page already has its own title 205/70 R14, 205/70 HR14 and so on, so my question is. What is the best practice for writing content on these types of pages to gain high rankings for several Keywords, and what value does writing the same keyword with spaces and no spaces have? Any help or advice is welcome, so I have a better understanding of how to approach this for this page and the rest of the site. Cheers Mal

                On-Page Optimization | | JamesDavison
                0
              • Safxmed

                Filter By Category bad for seo?

                on page optimization filter by category

                Hello Everyone! I know that a single product should not have filter by color option since it will create duplicate content, and you have to use canonical tags to solve it. BUT how about sorting through products via category/brands?
                Filter by category changes the URL of the General shop page (ex: hello.com/Shop/Category1022039 ). This page only displays the products within, no content/ descriptions etc unlike the original category page (ORIGINAL CATEGORY PAGE) Each of these category/brand already have their own individual pages (ex: hello.com/Shop/A). This is the page that will be optimized for content, FAQ, and ranking etc. Unlike in the url created when filtering through the categories. So technically I would have 2 URL for each Brand/Category. Would they compete with each other? What would you guys suggest. Please advise me on this. Thank You

                On-Page Optimization | | Safxmed
                0
              • Myles92

                Q&A Page Titles

                Hello All! I am currently updating page titles and metadata descriptions for a websites Q&A section and have run in to a problem while updating page titles.  Since it is the Q&A section of the website, all of the page titles are around 100 characters and some are up to 200 characters long.  Here is an example: Page Title:  My child is working below grade level in math. Do I have to purchase the curriculum from the grade below as well? The problem is that this is obviously too long for a SERP to display however I know it is best practice to have matching titles on both the title tag and page title.  My question is what hurts SEO value more:  the title tag and title of the page not matching or having a very long title displayed on the SERP?

                On-Page Optimization | | Myles92
                1
              • Exa

                Meta Robots index & noindex Both Implemented on Website

                I don't want few of the pages of website to get indexed by Google, thus I have implemented meta robots noindex code on those specific pages. Due to some complications I am not able to remove meta robots index from header of every page Now, on specific pages I have both codes 'index & noindex' implemented. Question is: Will Google crawl/index pages which have noindex code along with index code? Thanks!

                On-Page Optimization | | Exa
                0
              • crazymikesapps

                Navigation Links Causing Too Many Links Help?

                Hello, I have read some SEOMOZ search results for this, but am still concerned that Google may see 4,500 Too Many Link warnings as a problem. This is caused primarily due to our header navigation, which is not intended to be keyword stuffing, but to provide all avenues for our breadth of content. site: crazymikesapps.com. Most answers seem to advise if there is no keyword stuffing at hand don't worry about it. Any help appreciated. thank you Mike

                On-Page Optimization | | crazymikesapps
                0
              • NeilD

                Keywords in Navigation

                Hi, What is best practice for main navigation links with regards to use of keywords in them. For example is it best to using the phrase 'Pricing", "Website Pricing" or "Website Design Pricing" To me 'Pricing' is more appropriate because to the user they know they are on a website designer's site so what else would pricing be for right?!  Furthermore you use less 'real estate' on the nav bar! There is on page text around the site which has links to "see our website design pricing" etc so I assume that is perhaps a more natural place to include that phrase? Look forward to your insights 🙂

                On-Page Optimization | | NeilD
                0
              • BobGW

                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 | | BobGW
                1
              • dimanyc

                How to avoid keyword stuffing on e-Commerce Category pages

                Hi, I'm optimizing a large, consumer electronic e-commerce superstore. Based on client's choice of keywords, I'm using product category pages as my target urls. Because of the proprietary CMS structure, product names and titles, featured on my landing pages (product category pages) create a keyword overkill, affecting various ranking factors. For example, one of the target urls / landing pages, dedicated to a specific product category, mentions the keyword over 190 times because of so many product titles in the "body" section. Would inline "rel="canonical" help? If yes, what part of the website should it "canonize"? If rel="canonical" is not the answer, what strategies would you suggest? Thanks!

                On-Page Optimization | | dimanyc
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.