Header tags (H1, H2, H3 …..) are the second most important onpage SEO factor that you can use to get better SERPs. Search Engines still(with so much of the algorithm based on backlinks) give decent importance to the Header tags and having your target keywords in them can do a lot of good.
Still there is much dispute in the SEO community on how to use them properly.
Some of the prevalent views are:
- Use the same target keyword in H1, H2 and H3 tags. This will make the page look focused on a single keyword and gain importance in the Search Engine’s eyes.
Stuffing keyword at every possible place is a bad idea. Header tags designed to help to break an article in smaller sections. Not to stuff the same keyword over and over again without any relation to the content.
- Don’t use target keyword in H1 tag but use them in H2 and H3 tags. According to them H1 tags have been so abused that Search Bots and algorithm does not give as much importance to them as before. Much like they disregard meta-keywords tag.
Maybe in near future but still now H1 tags work pretty well and much better than H2, H3 tags at least.
- Use “keyword” as H1 tag and “keyword”+ “some word” as H2 and H3 tags. Lets assume your keyword is “Header Tags”. Use “Header tags” in H1, “Header tags Secrets” in H2 and “Header tags Secrets Unveiled” in H3.
Variation of the first view. This will also be considered as header spamming and won’t help the readers.
- Header tags are obsolete. Yup, some think link building is everything.
No comments!
If you are intelligent (which I am sure you are 
), you must have understood by now that none of the aforementioned strategies work well. If you want to do “Good SEO” with the header tags follow the rules set by Google and other Search Engines and use them optimally.
How to effectively use Header tags:
- Use your Main keyword in H1 tag (with or without extra words).
- Try to keep the “Keyword” at first.
- Use H2 tags to break down the main topic: Use questions like “How to effectively use Header tags:” or synonyms like “Overuse of H1 html tags” (See I substituted “header” with H1 and “tags” with “html” tag or “H1 or H2 tags- which one to use”. The scenario may change with every post but if you use a little brain you can find a way to write SEO effective and still reader friendly H1, H2 tags.
- Don’t use H3 with SEO in mind. Just use them with the natural flow of the article to make it more reader friendly. Ignore it if it is not needed.
- Do not use H4, H5…… tags just because you want better SEOed page. They don’t carry much importance anyways. Remember that this is 2010, spamming doesn’t work with Search Engines. Don’t sacrifice reader satisfaction for SEO.- This is most important.
Got any other view on proper use of Header tags. Please share your experience with us.
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DJ (12)
Joey (4)
Manas (4)
Pete (3)
Victor (3)
Nice post, very very informative, will definitely be useful for someone learning SEO, Keep up the work.
good ideas to improve my SEO. thanks. pete
Isn’t the H1 the main title of the blog? If we change it to the keyword of our desire won’t it affect the search engine rankings for search terms using the title?
Bharath Ram´s last blog ..Chelsea Transfer News- 6th July
Yes what Bharath Ram says is correct, the H1 tag should be used for your blog title only, with H2 used as article titles & H3 used throughout an article if justified.
This is the correct method of use as stated on W3C.org & lets face it, they should know !
I use a slight variation on the above method for the simple reason that my blog theme uses the H2 title to form the permalink (url), therefore I will limit this title to 2 or 3 strong keywords, no stop words & no punctuation. I will then insert a 2nd title in H3 at the top of the article. The 2nd title will include stop words, keywords (used in the H2 title) & punctuation, this 2nd title method seems to be working very well & quite often I will get an article in the top 5 with Google, in less than 1 hour. Try a search for “advanced most recent posts” or “random rotating ads” both of those usually rank pretty well as long as Google is not performing it’s usual dance routine
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Love the post.
In WordPress, the sidebar widgets use h2 for title. How does this effect the above and what about using keyword in them?
Thanks!
helpful tips! definitely will keep this in mind for seo purpose
james k raju´s last blog ..H1 Tags
I have read through lots of articles about SEO. And its very confusing. It looks like the search engine ranking alogorithm changes as well..
This content looks good to me.. Thanks
Good info, but I think the experience can differ. If you ask a SEO guru like Brad Callen, he will tell you to focus on H1 and put in your main keyword there.
So, what I’m trying to get at is: Experiment!
- Jeff @ Money Making Systems Reviews
Maybe a generic keyword is okay. Like on a SEO blog you can name the widget “SEO Tips” and list the categories under them. But do not use very specific keywords like “SEO compant (insert place here}” on the sidebar. Thats spamming. Hope this helped.
Thanks for adding your expertise to my post.
Algorithms are constantly changing, that’s why this business is so challenging and rewarding.
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How to add H1, H2 and H3 tags. I don’t see any such options while writing posts and pages. Do I need to add any plugin to add H1, H2 and H3 tags.
BTW, the tutorial is really wonderful. It will help me a lot.
I’ve noticed that a lot of bloggers on WordPress jump straight to H3. Do you know why this is?
then how do I put the tags h1, h2, h3 on the Html code?
Good article, I am on the second page of google without using any h1 tags, all h2. However Im going to add some h1 tags and see if I can get myself into the top 10 and on the first page.
I use keywords + additional keywords in post title.
I make long enough post and put h1, h2, 3 tag at the end of post.
This was a very informative post. I was always confused about H1, H2, and H3 tags and how to utilize them most. Hopefully this information will help boost my rankings a bit.
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I am a newbie in the use of H1, H2, and H3 “tags”. What are they and how can I implement them in my Website? One of the search engine analytic programs informs me my site doesn’t have any of these tags.
I really don’t understand about H1,h2,h3 tag… so confusing..
anybody can help me???
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Thanks for the info. Just a beginner so need all the help I can get.
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Interesting. I never thought about the h3 tags like that. I try to put some keywords in there, but if I were to use common sense I can see how the natural flow of the article would go better by not putting them in.
Thanks for your post. I’m going to tweak my WordPress now
I still believe the H1 tags for title gives more advantage rather than using H2 or H3 tags. It seems they are indexing more appropriately when we use h1 tags for the title.
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How does header tags effect ecommerce sites? With my shopping cart, all of the product titles are H2. Would it help or hurt to put H1 tag in the product description?
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it will be more useful for reader like me to tell something about H1 H2 3 TAG BEFORE HOW TO USE THEM
Just updated my page with some proper h1 and h2 tags. Thanks!
Thanks a lot. Some time minor things are also important. Please keep sharing more and I’ll write something about ‘H1′ in my Blog as well.
Rather than using h1 tags, if anyone focused more on title and other on page factors, that would be more beneficial in respect to h1,h2,h3 tags.. Believe me i had implemented it and found something interesting.
Not sure if this posted but I wanted to thank you for this information. I read this and went through my site 84 pages and posts and added H2 and H3 tags (the title is set as H1) and I have already noticed a difference in SEO.
Thanks!
Someone refer me to your blog and realize the year of your post is 2010. I’m curious if you ever make any researches about this after the panda updated since March, 2011. Please update, if you have any. Instead, I prefer to focus on the content quality due to panda algorithm is focus to the impression.
Good luck, I hope you reach the first page.
Look here
I don’t know. Probably because it looks to be the of the right size with text if you keep the default size of h3 tags.