Understanding SEO is a lifetime endeavour. But there are a few aspects of SEO that any business which operates a website should at least grasp.
One of those elements is the H1 tag. In this blog, we’ll give you some tips on how to effectively use the H1 on your own website, and how it affects your SEO.
What is an H1 tag?
H1 refers to an HTML tag that indicates a top-level heading on your website. Having headers in place makes it easier for both users and web crawlers to understand the content of your page.
First, here are some of the terms we’ll cover in this blog:
- Web Crawlers: also called a spider or spider bot, are internet bots that systematically scan the world wide web, typically for the purpose of web indexing (adding web pages to search engines like Google).
- HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. Most websites use this code to create their web pages.
- Tag: An HTML tag is a snippet of code that informs your web browser how to display the content.
- Headings: HTML includes 6 different heading tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6) formatted from largest to smallest. Just remember H1 is the most important of all 6 headings and impacts your SEO the most.
How to use the H1 tag on your website for SEO
Use only one Heading Tag on every page
Search engine crawlers can identify multiple headers on a page. But by using only one H1 tag, you’re focusing your SEO efforts on one keyword or phrase. Using multiple H1 tags could potentially dilute the SEO power of each H1.
Your Heading Tag should reflect the content of your page
This might seem obvious, but make sure your H1 tag describes the content of your web page. Use accurate descriptive keywords, your readers will soon leave if the content doesn’t match the title!
Keep your Heading Tag to twenty-seventy characters
This is not overly important, but 20-70 characters is optimal. If it’s too short, you’re wasting space, but if it’s too long, you could be diluting the power of the tag.
Be creative
Keeping all the above in mind, try and make your H1 tag unique. Your H1 tags don’t have to be statements or short sentences. You can phrase them in the form of a question or full sentences.
Don’t keyword-stuff
Avoid cramming in keywords in your H1 tag or body of text in such a way that it no longer makes sense. Your website’s user experience is vital to a good Google ranking.
Why is SEO important for your business?
Search engines like Google have millions of users each day looking for answers to their questions or solutions to their problems. And users are more likely to trust the first page of Google results when searching.
So, SEO is key to ensuring that your target audience can find you!
Aside from improving your search engine presence, good SEO practices will improve the user experience and usability of your website.
Do your research and find out what the keywords for your website need to be. Keywords are what users type into a search engine. Consider all the alternative search terms the user could possibly enter when looking for a product or service similar to yours.
We hope that this post helped you understand the importance of an H1 tag and why it is crucial to your SEO. Interested in learning more about Google? Read our post about BERT, Google’s most recent algorithm.
