0 How H1 and Other Headings Help SEO

Why H1 headings matter to search engines

If you’ve been looking into search engine optimization in hopes of getting your website to rank higher, you’ve probably wondered about H headings or H tags.



H tags are heading tags. They’re comparable to the headline and subheads of a newspaper or magazine article. The H1 tag is like an article headline, while H2, H3 and other H tags are like article subheads.
Each H tag consists of:

• the HTML code itself, telling us that this is a tag, and what kind
• the text that will be displayed on the web page.

Headings help you structure the content of a web page. The H1 tag indicates the overall topic of the page, and each subhead tag – H2, H3, and so on – indicates a subtopic of the page.
The H1 tag is the most important. When it's properly written, it quickly, clearly and concisely outlines what people and search engines can expect to find there.
The H1 heading is not the same thing as the title of a web page. The title shows up at the very top of a web browser window, telling you which page you are on. The title of a web page also shows up in search results, while an H1 heading seldom does.

Why Headings Matter for SEO

The headline and subheads in a newspaper or magazine article help readers quickly understand what the article is about. That's true of H1 and other headings on a web page, with the additional benefit that these help both people and search engines understand what's on the web page.

Because headings are defined with HTML code, search engines understand that these pieces of text are of particular importance. Writing these headings carefully, and including important keywords in them, tells search engines what the page is about.
That's why headings can really help your SEO, or search engine optimization. They speak to search engines in a form that search engine crawlers can understand. Including your important keywords in headings tells search engines how to categorize your web pages, and helps the pages show up well in searches for your keywords.
This doesn't mean that a website with no H1 tags or other headings won't rank well in search results. But failing to use H tags is a missed SEO opportunity.