What is an h1 tag? It’s often the webpage title, using the biggest font size on the page. The page title should always be the h1 tag, since it’s going to be the best descriptive aspect for the webpage. Many CMS will automatically make the webpage title be the h1 tag, and where you run into the problem is customized pages, where web developers or web designers didn’t consult SEO beforehand. H1 tags are part of heading tags, that help outline content and support keyword relevancy.

If your focus keyword isn’t in your h1 tag and thus part of your webpage title, it either has no place on that webpage or needs to be included in the h1 tag based on content relevancy. H1 tags are on page SEO factors, since it’s able to be customized on every webpage and helps searchbots figure out keyword relevancy.

Many times there will be multiple h1 tags on the homepage or none at all. If you were going to have to pick, having no h1 tags is worse. This is why it’s always important to include an SEO when developing new websites or making customized design changes. Not doing so, will cost you keyword rankings and website organic traffic in the long run, despite how awesome the website looks.

Multiple H1 Tags Are Ok With Html5

Yes, it’s been said many times before even by Google that multiple h1 tags could cause issue with keyword relevancy. However html5 makes multiple h1 tags alright since each section needs a title too! John Muller of Google’s webmaster liaison has come flat out and said now that multiple h1 tags are not a big deal and that keywords will still be found. There is a need for relevancy and user optimization issues to look at. But in terms of SEO it’s a older myth that can be put to rest now.

How Long Should H1 Tags Be?

Not long at all, no more than 5 words or else you start to confuse searchbots and want to achieve sanity when writing meta titles later on, since too long h1 tag, means it won’t all fit in your meta title. You also want to try to avoid one worded h1 tags, since there is not a very high chance the website will rank for such a generalized term. Normally 2 to 5 worded h1 tags tend to work best, as they are short and to the point.

Then when content relevancy and internal linking all lead to the same contextual relevancy, there is a very high chance of ranking that keyword in a reasonable spot to start. More work is always needed for the full benefits of SEO, since it’s not just a game between the website and search engines, but also everyone else as well. So an ever changing landscape means every changing dynamics, so a page 1 rank 1 achievement today, won’t always last till next week, or tomorrow.

Think Of The H1 Tag As The Parent

You give the h1 tag a few paragraphs of relevant content, and then your h2 tag further supports the h1 tag content. This is how you build content relevancy and basically teach searchbots what the webpage is about in a more uniformed way. When searchbots see such relevancy, they rank webpages for the h1 keyword 99% of the time. The content needs to break down into a keyword supporting hierarchy, each section deeper, defining further the subject matter focused on from the section above.

Adding internal linking that further relates and supports each h1 tag keyword, benefits all internally linked pages on that webpage, by improving the content relevancy on the keywords used in the internal linking anchor text. That is why naming is everything in SEO, synonyms to variations, it’s always a name game with SEOs.

If You’re Concerned About The H1 Tags On Your Website.

Contact SEOByMichael and have an SEO audit done, the problems aren’t just found, but solutions are provided as well as supporting information!