The Importance of H1 Tags In SEO?

[justlukeyou]

I have read various blogs and forums which suggest that many site designers dont bother to use H1 tags however they can be useful in SEO purposes.

I am planning to use them on {my site} although I am puzzled as to why they are not widely used.

[webwest]

Header tags are the 2nd most important tag next to title. Try to put similar text in your h1 and page title, and use that same text on the page to tie it all together.

[Advertiserbay]

What about if I put a h2 tag in and not a h1 tag, would this not be as effective?

David - Advertiserbay

[webwest]

If you need multiple headers, certainly use h2, h3 ... h6 etc. Don't put whole paragraphs in a header and don't use (ie) multiple h1 headers on the same page.

[seofool]

Search engines don't put much, if any, weight on H tags anymore, no matter if they are H1, H2, H3 whatever. A study just came out to prove this, read more here: {Link Removed}

[jay 11]

If I recall correctly, googlebots used to use H1 tags to weigh the "importance" of text on a page - so they were, at one point, perceived as beneficial from an SEO standpoint. However, when google saw that webmasters were abusing H1 tags to emphasize keywords and manipulate search rankings, they stopped using them as a ranking influence. Nowadays, all an H1 tag does is tell Google that you are using a heading. It has no impact on how your site will rank.

[webwest]

Header tags may not carry as much SEO weight as they used to but personally, I'm not removing any and will continue to use them at least for organization and global styling ... but I'm an old school coder :)

[MktgRob]

I have read various blogs and forums which suggest that many site designers dont bother to use H1 tags however they can be useful in SEO purposes.

I am planning to use them on {my site} although I am puzzled as to why they are not widely used.

I am curious to know why you didn't say "I am planning to use them on my site...". Could it be that you are trying to get around the rule about publicizing your website in the forums???

I think it is.

[sennetor]

MktgRob I'd also remove the link from your quote. :)

[Advertiserbay]

OK so if h1 tags are not really rated much anymore then what is? I am new to HTML and need to make sure my new site has the best SEO and performs well in rankings. Any help in this area would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

[jay 11]

OK so if h1 tags are not really rated much anymore then what is? I am new to HTML and need to make sure my new site has the best SEO and performs well in rankings. Any help in this area would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

There are no shortcuts really. At least none that won't come back to bite you later on. :) It's probably best to develop your site in a manner that is natural for users and compliant with web standards. There are 'code validators' you can run your site pages through to help make sure there are no glaring errors.

[canadafred]

This is my take on this an please read the latest Google SEO guideline (The PDF version which is somewhat difficult to find).

Use <h1> tags to emphasize primary keyphrases.
Use <h2> tags to emphasize secondary keyphrases.
Use <h3> well, you get the picture by now.

Do this consistently across your site.

To the response that mentioned the devalued importance of the <hx> tag, well, maybe it's time to wake up.

[thanya]

as my experience,h1 tags helps ranking so much. So I put it on all of my websites.

[canadafred]

Listen. I just wrote you a two page piece but everything I wrote crashed: just as I tried to send my response. I really don't like writing in Word when I'm in my few, various Forums I frequent [OK JUST HERE!], but that would be a good habit to get in. Having the text you wrote instantly come back up for the times this stupid machine doesn't work. And at the same time as having Internet woes, I don't really don't feel like writing over and over again the things I've written about for the last hour, it seems. There's gotta' to be buggering up between this HP beast and Microsoft war going on non-stop. Things want to open, then they don't want to open and other things are trying to open other stuff ... AHHHHHH It's like I only had three megs of ram again.

It's 1:30 in the morning in my neck of thise great, seasonally transitional wilderness I'm a part of and I'm grateful.

OK. this is the synopsis of my earlier thoughts on this interesting headings debate:

A. Use <h1> when appropriate, paticularly when it can emphasize keyphrases and their dynamic variations; including but not exclusive to abbreviations, synonymous keyphrases, plurialization, prefix and suffix transitions and variables, obvious use of linguistics, altering verbe tenses, acronyms, lexicons, morphology ... any other web content apparently intelligerntly produced.

Then you have the <h2>. Think of it like the secondary keyphrase Introduction Channel (some ethical SEOers call this "Going for the Long Tail" SEO approach (auxilliary keyphrases such as regionally specific [by country]) ie:P .com vs .ca.

Niow, let's look at the <h3> tag ... heck ... look around, you'll figure heading tags out pretty quick.

Keep things orderly. Important is mportant, you don't have to overkill it in just the <Hx>s. [Note:I have been known to "over-optimize sites, intentionally, in order to best assess my webpage positions amongst the top keyphrase competitors, and then, to reduce it while still growing, slowly and cautiously]. Smooth but irregular a bit, unpredictable yet predictable. Let the search engine know that t'll find really good new stuff when it determines itself the next crawl.

Craft your headings, don't just search engine them. Make them visitor interesting, part of the the reason why they showed up. This is effective on-site search engine optimization.

Work the headings! Work all the optimizable web page components.

[family checkout]

Proper structure plays a role in SEO. All heading tags should be used in the proper order to achieve maximum exposure, but they are not the only part of the formula. A large portion of the formula involves linkbacks. The more linkbacks you have from sites that also have a high number of linkbacks for the same keyword, the better your search engine results will be for that particular keyword.

[canadafred]

... linkbacks ... more linkbacks ... a high number of linkbacks ...

Linkbacks? Are they in the same family as, check this out checkout, humpbacks? BACKLINKS, you mean Backlinks or incoming links or even inbound links. Check this out family ... linkback hunting is for checked out SEO sissies.

[Allison2009]

Google has changed its algorithm in the past one week or so. My PR has taken a beating. But some keywords got good placements. Really I don't know what is happening.

[canadafred]

Google has changed ... Really I don't know what is happening.

None of us really know either and the search engines, well, they're kinda nuts themselves.

Sounds to me like you must have recently been playing around with SEOing your stuff and your keyphrase rankings are changing because very little of such significance happens in the search engine ranking mechanism in one week, lately.

[AirForceOne]

Right, h1, h2 and h3 tags are all important for on-page SEO. I would recommend you to read an article from seomoz titled 'search ranking factors'

[sevamaster]

You can place only one <h1> and many <h2>,<h3> etc.
<h1> tag is must to be placed (like <title>). It is the main subject of the page.

[vistastores]

I want to define header tag on my eCommerce website specially for following pages.

Root Category Pages
Sub Category Pages
Product Pages

I have Google for it and read too many articles to get it done. I just surprised to read variation in suggestions. It's but obvious because different SEO guys have different experience with header tag. I have too!! (10 times H1 tag in one page and performing well)

I am using SEOmoz tool and just done few R & D with it. That tool suggest us H1 and H2 tag in page elements. So, I assume that both tag are quite more important rather than rest one.

This is my conclusion after too much reading as well as research. I am looking forward for some more inputs in same direction.

[mark santa]

H1 tag is the first tag on the body of the page which google analyses and understand this page is optimized for which keyword....but its only one of the factors of onpage optimisation..

[tech.biztech]

As per the experts, it is abundant much mandatory to exclude the HREF links from the tag. Whenever someone keeps a link in H1 tag, the search engine in process gets the consequence that the linked web page is more important then the other page.

[mark santa]

when the spider analyze your website while visiting,it will also lok into the H1 tag to know you website content is for which keyword etc..there are some values to these factors depends upon its involvement in the seo marketing..
so donot avoid and use it..
only people who are not aware about its importance in seo will only avoid it..
experienced designers know its value..

[paavan123]

Up to my knowledge, crawling will be not easy task for Google search engine unless we put H1 tag. I am expecting the details regarding that so please share to me.

[Vinothkumarspyke]

thanks for sharing this now i going to optimezed in h1 tages but my designing parts should change then how can i optimezed in h1 tag

[bhavdeeps]

Google crawls the h1 tag that's why h1 tag mostly used on websites.