Clearly marking the hierarchy of content with appropriate H tags not only enriches search engine understanding of pages but also elevates the user’s navigational experience. The use of h1s, h2s and h3s is critical to achieving the optimal SEO potential of a page as it contributes to improved readability for users and allows screen reader users to comprehend the page’s content structure.
This is especially true in regard to the h1 tag, which is one of the most prominent on-page SEO factors and is often a main focus of an online marketing strategy. A properly optimized h1 tag can boost organic search visibility, increase click-through rates and move the needle on metrics like sales.
Title tags are important because they are the first element of a webpage that users come across when searching for information on Google and other SERPs. Having an engaging, descriptive title tag that includes a keyword can improve the accuracy of searches and boost organic rankings.
When selecting a h1 tag, it’s important to avoid using too much text because search engines tend to truncate titles that are too long. It’s best to keep a h1 tag around 55-60 characters and to only include a single keyword.
If you want to include additional keywords in an h1 tag, try to place them towards the end of the tag or within a paraphrased version of the keyword. Using too many keywords will make the tag look unnatural and can damage your search rankings.
H1 tags also provide an opportunity to highlight other relevant keywords or keyword variations. However, it’s important to only include one keyword variation in an h1 tag as overuse can lead to penalties from search engines.
Another way to optimize a h1 tag is to make sure it is descriptive and gives readers a strong sense of what they can expect from the page’s content. This helps them decide whether the page is relevant to their query and encourages them to click through.
Adding popular words or phrases to your website’s h1 tags can help your site appear in more search results as they appear in the autocomplete fields of queries, which is another way to improve organic visibility. These types of words are called “latent semantic indexing” and can give you a ranking boost.
The h1 tag is the most important on-page SEO factor and should be treated as such. It’s a good idea to include your primary keyword in the title tag, ideally near the beginning of the phrase, as well as the URL slug and at least one subheadline. It’s also important to sprinkle your keyword throughout the body copy and in image alt text, but don’t overdo it or you’ll be viewed as a keyword stuffer.
Using heatmaps and other user behavior reports can give you unique insights into what people are searching for when they visit your site. This can help you better position your most popular keywords and ensure that you’re writing content geared toward your target audience.
