Importance Of Headings And Sub Headings In Optimizing Pages? Options

[on_way_to_fame]

Just wondering, how important are headings and especially sub headings when optimizing a webpage? If they are important, how do SE's recognize them, say for e.g. when you have added the text using a WYSIWYG editor? Is it on the basis of Font Size ? (As when we use a wysiwyg we dont really add heading tags?)

Thanks

[Ian C]

Search Engines recognize a heading as a heading prinmarily because you are using the <H> tags. And your <H> tags are quite important, especially your <H1> which is your main heading for the page.

• Use keywords that relate to the page content in your heading tags
• Have your keywords occur early in the tags
• Do not use more than 1 instance of an <H1> tag per page
• Use multimple <H2> and <H3> tags where appropriate

In my humble opinion, the <H1> tag is your second most important tag (after your title tag, of course...)

I hope that this helps.

Ian

Just wondering, how important are headings and especially sub headings when optimizing a webpage? If they are important, how do SE's recognize them, say for e.g. when you have added the text using a WYSIWYG editor? Is it on the basis of Font Size ? (As when we use a wysiwyg we dont really add heading tags?)

Thanks

[on_way_to_fame]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the reply...so does this mean that is we use wysiwyg editors, it is not possible to effectively utlize the heading tags?

[Ian C]

It depends on the editor that you are using and which of the features available on that editor that you are using to create your heading. If you are just typing in a heading without using some sort of editor command to indicate that it is a heading, then you are pretty much just typing plain old text.

In all editors you should be able to go into the code view for the page. Look for your heading and see if it is wrapped in an <h1></h1> tag. If it is then it's a heading. If it's not then it's just text.

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the reply...so does this mean that is we use wysiwyg editors, it is not possible to effectively utlize the heading tags?

[Jill]

Headings are important for your users so they can easily scan the page and know what your site is about.

The search engines determine what's important by what would be important to a user. So it's always a good idea to think about what they want, and you can usually be sure that the search engines will also like it.

It doesn't matter if your headings are in H tags, just that they are headings that are set apart from the other content for easy scannability.

[Ian C]

Interesting perspective Jill...

Are you suggesting that the H tags have no effect on ranking in the search results? My own personal experience and much of what I have read from reputable authorities on SEO suggest quite the opposite.

Out of intelectual curiosity and with full respect for your opinion as a professional, I'm genuinely interested in how you arrived at this conclusion.

Would this by any chance be making use of the idea that over optimized sites are penalized so therefore adopt an less structured/less formulaic approach that leaves less of a 'SEO footprint?'

Best wishes...

Ian

Headings are important for your users so they can easily scan the page and know what your site is about.

The search engines determine what's important by what would be important to a user. So it's always a good idea to think about what they want, and you can usually be sure that the search engines will also like it.

It doesn't matter if your headings are in H tags, just that they are headings that are set apart from the other content for easy scannability.

[piskie]

This Heading Tag issue is always going to cause division on this Forum more than anywhere else.

You just choose your own view and try not to get into heated debate about headings.

[Jill]

Are you suggesting that the H tags have no effect on ranking in the search results?

Yes.

Out of intelectual curiosity and with full respect for your opinion as a professional, I'm genuinely interested in how you arrived at this conclusion.

By testing it, of course.

Would this by any chance be making use of the idea that over optimized sites are penalized so therefore adopt an less structured/less formulaic approach that leaves less of a 'SEO footprint?'

Yes, and no.

Nothing wrong with designing sites that follow good w3c specifications, with a main heading, subheads and content. That's not a problem. But search engines can follow this formula, whether or not your headings are enclosed in H tags, that much is clear (at least to me).

See my art of seo article for more, if you're wondering about "over optimization."

[copywriter]

* Use keywords that relate to the page content in your heading tags

I agree

* Have your keywords occur early in the tags

Doesn't matter where they occur

* Do not use more than 1 instance of an <H1> tag per page

Why?

* Use multimple <H2> and <H3> tags where appropriate

That's fine.

Google is looking for text that is offset in some way. When you offset text that usually means it is important. So, yes, it does make sense that the content of <H> tags would be seen as important. But equally important are words in bold, italic, bulleted lists, etc.

For WYSIWYG editors, to make text bold and increase the font size is the same thing as using an <H> tag. It's just going about it manually (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[qwerty]

Do not use more than 1 instance of an <H1> tag per page

Why?

Because the <h1> tag is the heading for the whole page, like the headline of an article. You can have sub-headings, but those would be <h2> or a lower-level heading. There can only be one "main" heading.

If you feel strongly that a page needs to top-level headings, it's a good indication that the content should be split up into two pages. If you want two <h1>s because you want two instances of that big text just for the visual oomph, you're not using the tag correctly.

[Michael Martinez]

Interesting perspective Jill...

Are you suggesting that the H tags have no effect on ranking in the search results? My own personal experience and much of what I have read from reputable authorities on SEO suggest quite the opposite.

Google has actually acknowledged that it gives some credit for use of Hx elements and/or font-size variations. So, yes, you can boost your on-page relevance by properly using a set of Hx elements.

I've seen a lot of people spin their wheels, however, by trying to include everything in them (or lots of spammy keywords). With more than 100 factors involved in its algorithm, no one factor is going to matter a great deal (at least, that is how Google hopes it works).

Obviously, some people succeed in making one factor work better than others on some occasions.

[Jill]

Google has actually acknowledged that it gives some credit for use of Hx elements and/or font-size variations.

When are you going to stop believing everything google "acknowledges"? Why would they tell their algorithm to the public?

[Michael Martinez]

When are you going to stop believing everything google "acknowledges"? Why would they tell their algorithm to the public?

Everything is testable, Jill, but if I have to make a choice between accepting what a search engine discloses about its process and what people in forums express in the way of disbelief, I will always go with what the search engines disclose about themselves.

[Jill]

Really? Cuz I would do the opposite since I know they have good reason to not tell the truth.

[qwerty]

Whoa, deja vu (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

For those readers who don't want to take a side, just remember that there are important reasons for using semantically correct markup that have nothing to do with rankings, and no one has ever suggested that the proper use of heading elements can be bad for rankings, so it just makes sense to use them.