In this article we will talk about what the headings H1 and H2 are, what role they play, and also teach how to use them correctly to achieve the best result.
What are the headers H1 and H2?
Headings are words, phrases or phrases that summarize the meaning of the information following them. We do not have to reread the entire text of the article in a magazine or newspaper in order to understand what it will be about.
We take a look at the headlines and subheadings and decide whether we are interested in this material, whether it is worth reading.
If we open a textbook or instruction, then using the headings we can easily find exactly the information that we need. In a word, headlines not only attract readers, but also serve their convenience.
Texts on sites should also have headings. There are at least 2 reasons for this:
- Headings structure the text, make it easier to read. A solid text (often called a “sheet”) is difficult to read, I don’t want to read it. And since behavioral factors (the totality of the actions of visitors to the site) are taken into account by search engines today, you are interested in the user reading the text on your resource rather than closing the page, frightened by the “sheets”.
- Headings make it clear to search engines what information is contained in a particular part of the text. Based on the headings, search engines evaluate how this information meets user expectations. That is why they are so important when optimizing texts.
Now you understand that you should not neglect the use of headings in the texts on the pages of the site? Then follow on!
What do the terms H1 and H2 mean? We will have to touch a little on the html-layout issues.
H1 and H2 (or rather, <h1> and <h2>) are html tags that show the importance of the text following them.
They are also called accent tags. In the html document, it looks like this:
On a web page, such headers have different formatting by default:
Actually, there are 6 levels of headings: from H1 to H6. Accordingly, the title H1 has the greatest weight, the title H2 is secondary, and the title of the sixth level H6 is the least significant.
However, for SEO promotion, the most important headings are H1 and H2. We’ll talk about the rules for using them to optimize texts.
What you need to know for proper placement of headers H1 and H2?
The H1 header plays an important role not only in optimizing text, but also in optimizing the entire page. It is he who tells the search engine how much the content presented on the page matches the page title (Title), and, therefore, meets the expectations of users.
Have you come up with a creative, unusual, attractive heading based on, for example, a pun? Such an approach may be good for print advertising or a newspaper article, however, such a creative can have negative consequences for search promotion.
Search engines do not have imagination and imaginative thinking, specifics are important to them. Below, we’ll provide important suggestions for creating the H1 heading.
Basic rules for using the H1 header
- Heading H1 should be concise but concise. An important condition is the natural occurrence of keywords in it. We give an example. Let's say you optimize the page on which the catalog of women's shoes is presented. To promote this page, the following queries were selected (what search queries are, you can read in our material “Understand Your SEO Specialist”): “women's shoes” (frequency - 3896), “women's shoes in Minsk” (frequency - 490), “buy women's shoes” (frequency - 384), “shoes for women” (frequency - 207), “women's shoes price catalog” (frequency - 318). For the text on this page, it is most logical to use the heading H1 “Women's Shoes”, since it is the most general, but at the same time describes the content of the content, and can also be specified by headings of no one’s level.
- The heading H1 should appear on the page only once.
- This title is placed at the very beginning of the text, preferably at the top of the page.
- The heading H1 should be placed above the headings of other levels (it is not allowed to put, for example, the heading H2).
- The font size of this heading must be larger than the font size of the lower level headings. By default, it is, but if the styles are set differently, you should fix the situation.
H2 Header Examples
How are H2 headings compiled? There may be several of them in the text. They typically specify the H1 heading and structure the entire text. Let us return to our example with a page on which women's shoes are presented.
For this page, you can write a selling text that describes the advantages of the models offered to customers, and presents a table of sizes.
Also on the page, the user can find a catalog of shoes with photos and prices. In this case, the headings in the text may be as follows:
If you recall the search queries that we use to promote our page in this example, you will understand that we include advanced queries with lower frequency in the H2 headings. They can be represented in indirect entry (they can be tilted, “diluted” in other words). And most importantly - they specify our H1 heading and signal to the search engine that the text following them really matches the search queries spelled out in the page title (Title).
Common Errors Using H1 and H2 Headers
When using headings to optimize texts, try to avoid the following errors:
- Using the <h1> and <h2> tags to style page elements. This is a common mistake that can occur even beyond your will. In many ready-made website templates (for example, on Joomla or WordPress), the <h1> and <h2> tags include, for example, block names. For example, such as "Popular Products", "Latest News", "We are in social networks" and so on. This technique is misleading to search engines and does not bring anything good. Therefore, when conducting a site audit of a site, a specialist must check whether the headers are used “as intended”. Remember the important rule - H1 and H2 should only be used to structure text!
- Use the same headings for different pages. This, of course, is nonsense, but this also occurs. At a minimum, H1 headers must be unique for every page!
- Placement in the headers of hyperlinks.
- The presence on the page of two or more headings H1. We remember that this is unacceptable! Our motto: “One page - one headline H1”!
In conclusion of our article, we draw your attention to another important point. It will again be about site templates.
There are cases when in standard page templates there are no H1 headers at all. Instead, there are H2 headers.
Even if you are prompted to enter text in the “Material Title” field in the administrative part of the site, in fact it may turn out that it will be enclosed in <h2> </h2> tags.
Check if there is such a flaw on your site - study the structure of the document by pressing F12. Is your title enclosed in <h1> </h1> tags? So everything is fine!
The importance of the proper placement of text headers should be reminded to a developer who is not very familiar with seo, while making up a unique site.