WordPress Heading Tags
Heading Tags aka Header Tags are the second most important on-page SEO Factor that you can use to get more better SERPs. As we know Google changes its Search Algorithm generally upto 500-600 times each years. Most of these changes are Minor, every few month Google rolls out a Major Algorithm change that affects Search Engine Ranking of your Websites and Blogs. WordPress, #1 Free Blogging Software is already SEO friendly but as the Google's Search Algorithm is now changing dozens of time in a month, you can not neglect any of SEO factor. H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 these are the Header Tags that can be used on any website or Blog, even also on WordPress Blogs. Webmasters and Bloggers knows these Tags with different names, such as HTML Header Tags, Head Tags, Heading Tags, SEO Header Tags etc. There are lots of SEO Factors for WordPress that can affect your Blog Ranking, As you know, If Content is the King then SEO is the Queen and Header Tags are the second Most Important SEO factor.
What are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 & H6 Tags?
The header tags (H1, H2, H3 and so on) represent the beginning of a new section or area of a pages content and alert search engine spiders of the relevancy of the content that follows the heading tag. It's always a good idea to have great headlines on a site that may or may not use a keyword phrase, whether it's wrapped in H-whatever tags is of no consequence to your rankings. In short These elements represent the Headings for their sections.
HTML Heading Tags
Header Tags have a rank given by the number in their name. The H1 element is said to have the highest rank, the h6 element has the lowest rank, and two elements with the same name have equal rank.
Many search engines also pay special attention to what you have inside your header tags. For example, the most important headline on your page should be inside the <H1> tag, the second most important under the <H2>, and so on.
How to Use Header Tags on WordPress?
You can use Header Tags on a WordPress Blog on the basis of their rank. It means The Most Important Heading probably the 'Article Title' should be goes between H1 Tags, Second Most Important Heading should be goes between H2 Tags and so no.
If you are using these Header Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6) on your WordPress Blog in a proper way no doubt you will be get maximum SEO benefits. According to me for a WordPress blog, most recommended way to deal with these Tags is as,
| Header Tags | Uses on WordPress | Number of Times |
| H1 | Post Title/ Article Title | 1 |
| H2 | #1 Headings within Posts | As Many Times You Want (2-5 best) |
| H3 | #2 Headings/ Sub Headings within Posts | As Many times You Want (upto 6 best) |
| H4 | Comment Box Title/ Sidebar Widgets Title | Unlimited |
| H5 | Sidebar Titles | Unlimited |
| H6 | Footer Widgets Title | Unlimited |
Their is no any restriction on How many number of times these tags can be use on a single page except H1 Tags, Although some webmasters says You may also use H1 tags for unlimited Times, but i personally don't believe on this as Google has been stated that you should use H1 Tags only 1 time on a single page or post.
H1, H2 and H3 these three Tags are the most important Header Tags that's why i am saying to use these within you Articles. H1 & H2 headers are among the more heavily weighed elements of on-page content. If leveraged properly, H1 & H2 headers can be very effective in helping to shape search engines perception of your pages content. It's always a good idea to have great headlines on a site that may or may not use a keyword phrase, with H2 and H3 Tags.
Example: If you are trying to optimize your Page for the phrase "get iphone" then you'll want to ensure your <H1> headline has that keyword inside it.
What are the Differences Among Header Tags?
A very common question hit everyone's mind is What are the differences among H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 Heading Tags. A very simple Answer is, There is no any differences among these except their ranking on SERPs. Search Engines Like Google Always gives more importance to H1 Tags, Followed by H2, H3 and so on.
This Ensure that The Keywords or Phrases coming between H Tags has more importance than The Words/Sentences Placed between P Tags (Paragraph Tags).
Using Header Tags on Page.
Example: For example i am using 'WordPress Template' as a phrase on my Article, and I have placed this between H1 Tags, then b/w H2 Tags and then b/w Paragraph Tags. It means this Single Phrase will appear 3 times with in my Post. But Search Engine will be give more importance to the Phrase Coming b/w H1 Tags as compare to H2 and other Tags.
Google's View on Heading Tags
Google has been stated on it's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, They also seems H1 s Most Important and H6 as least Important Heading Tags.
Google's SEO Guide says, Heading Tags are an important Website Component for catching the User's eye, so be careful how you use them!
Where to Use Heading Tags within Article?
Although i have been mentioned above that Phrase Comes between H1, H2,....H6 tags has more importance than normal texts. But this mean not that you should use them anywhere. Always use Header/ Heading Tags where it make sense. Using too many Heading Tags on a single page can make it hard for your readers to determine where one topic ends and another begins.
As we know Heading Tags typically make Text contented in them larger than normal text, that's why you should use them as it's cue your readers that this text is important. Remember always try to write for man not for machine.
Tips for Using HTML Header Tags for Better SEO
- Use your target keyword in Heading Tags. This will make the page look focused on a single keyword and gain importance in the Search Engine’s eyes. But don't do Keyword Stuffing.
- Try to use target keyword in H2 and H3 tags instead of using is H1 tags.
- Use "keyword" as H1 tag and "keyword"+ "some other word" as H2 and H3 tags. Lets assume your keyword is "Header Tags". Use "Header tags" in H1, "Header tags Secrets" in H2 and "Header tags Secrets Unveiled" in H3.
If you are intelligent (which I am 100% sure you are), you must have understood by now that none of the aforementioned strategies work well. If you want to do "Better SEO" with the header tags follow the rules set by Google and other Search Engines (mentioned above) and use them optimally.
No matter how much you write or how much you are good at writing but formatting an article is more important. I think it plays the major role in a blog’s success.
It’s not good to use H1 tag more than one time in a blog post, because of bad SEO!!
Really helpful tips for beginners
Hello Deepak,
I truly great and very thorough article! I just love it. This just answers every possible question about the Header and H1 and H2 tags and why we use them and the proper way to use them.
No question is left unanswered!
I am going to shoot a video on using H1 and H2 tags, then put that video into a blog post and then I’m going to link back to this article and give you credit for the great job you did!
Thanks so much!
~ Jupiter Jim
You wrote great post about the header tags. I was little confused about but as you said and i was thinking are similar upto a state. Thanks for the post.
I do H1 as my blog title and H2 as my post name what I’ve read, is the preferred way to have these tags set-up.
Jav, Use H1 Tag for page title. On Homepage use your Blog Title as H1 while on Single Pages Post Title as H1. Remember use H1 tag on a single page for only 1 time.
Deepak,
Once again, outstanding article! You are mentioned by name and have a trackback to this article on my site, check it out. Thanks again!
http://jupiterjimsmarketingteam.com/2012/05/18/wordpress-tutorial-add-h1-and-h2-tags-blog-posts-seo/
~ Jupiter Jim
Thank you… Jupiter.
Deepak,
Thanks for inspiring me to write the article and shoot the video. If you want to embed the video into this post, feel free to do so. If you ever want to guest post on my blog, it would be an honor for me.
You Da BEST!
~ Jupiter Jim
Thank you so much ! that’s all I can say
Hi Deepak.
Ok, i understand a little of this. I need someone to answer my query
here.
In my website, i am making different post. Tile of the post is END OF TENANCY CLEANING MITCHAM. I have created the tags for it like this – TENANCY CLEANING MITCHAM, HOUSE CLEANING MITHCAM, CARPET CLEANING MITHCAM.
Now i am going to make another post : END OF TENANCY CLEANING CATERHAM, should i make tag like this END OF TENANCY CLEANING CATERHAM, HOUSE CLEANING CATERHAM, CARPET CLEANING CATERHAM…
or should i just make tags like this and use it in all post END OF TENANCY CLEANING, HOUSE CLEANING, CARPET CLEANING.
i am not trying to make revolving doors for SEO, but it looks similar to that. Every post got unique contents and images.
I hope someone can reply to this here or directly to info at endoftenancycleaning dot eu
I would highly appriciate. Please.
Tenancy, I think you are talking about Post Tags, Post Tags are different from Heading Tags. Its a feature of wordpress that provide a useful way to group related posts together and to quickly tell readers what a post is about. Post Tags doesn’t play much role on SEO. You can create as much as tags you want but keeping less is always a better idea. You can use single keywords or keyword Phrase in Tags, just keep them shorter and don’t use long tail keywords in Post Tags.
I had heard the same thing about Post Tags, so thanks for confirming! So much to learn!
thanks for this useful tips admin ….
Thank you very much for your informations!
I have a question.
If tag h1 has to appear only once in a blog page, and you decide to use it for the post titles, the problem is that in the homepage or in the labels pages the h1 will appear more than one time, because you have more than 1 post in those pages. So, what happens in this case?
Thank you very much.
Giuliana, A good question but you should always use heading tag H1 as following
Homepage: H1 for you Homepage/Main/Site title.
Single Pages: H1 for Page/Post title.
Archive/ label pages: H1 for Main title and H2 for Posts title.
Hey how about using H1 | H2 > H3 and then another H2 > H3… or it should flow like H1 > H2 > H2 > H3 > H3 > H3?
Mahesh, You can use heading tags in any order you like but hierarchical order results best.
Thanks for that! I think I will stick to H1 > Paragraphs > H2 > H3s
I really like how your illustrations tie in with your post. Very informative!
hi deepak,
should i add h1 tag to the blogger template in post.title or while writing content in individual posts?
Divyansh, you should use H1 tag on your blogger template as… For Homepage use H1 for your Site Main Title, for Archive Pages H1 for Archive Title and on individual Posts H1 for your Post Title.
I have a problem some of You may have answer for. I hope I will explain clearly since I’m no programmer.
WP template I used for one of my sites displays it’s blog name on every page and it is set as . Result is that whatever I do, my web has the same tag in code of all pages, comments etc (bad for seo).
Removing tag from header.php file would cause the whole graphic to collapse – appearance is set in CCS file and it somehow works together with placement of some other items on page. I managed to set the same appearance for tag in CCS and set the blog name as . Result is different on all pages (good) but invalid tag on the top of all pages (again bad for seo).
I would like to keep the appearance of blog name on each page so that menus and boxes won’t get crazy but I’d prefer not to have any header higher in the code than correct header of every individual page.
feel free to check code at http://www.jan-cabalek.cz to see what I mean. Sorry for rather bad english – it’s hard for me to describe such things in my mother tongue too. Mind my noobnes in coding pls. I am no programmer.
Best regards
J.K.
Jakub, I got what you want to say, i checked your site and found your SEO Plugin [All in One SEO Pack] is miss-configured. Reset all its setting to default. There could be some other problem also, but i noticed this on first view, so suggesting you to reset your SEO Plugin’s setting to default. Let me know if the problem still occur.
Pity I ruined the whole question by using angle brackets – of course some text vanished. As I read it again I would hardly understand what’s going on.
My question was about repeating H1 header on every page (now set to H6 manually) – WP template often displays blog name as H1 and keeps repeating it at every url (white text at the very top of every page). Deleting H1 tag from header.php would make whole graphic collapse since H1 appearance is set in CSS file and so any style in header.php is written over. The solution would probably be still deleting H1 tag from header.php but also inserting every possible related piece of code form CSS directly to header.php (and disabling that related piece of code in CSS). Keeping in mind I’m such a looser I will make some backup coppy first.
Second thing is about All in One SEO Pack being miss-configured. I can’t see any connection to my original question but thanks anyway, I will have a closer look at it soon.
Back to my original question: All I wanted to know is, if there is any elegant solution to this bad habbit of WP templates. In header.php file there is something like “put H1 header here and let it be blog name” and in style.css there is something like “let H1 in header.php have this height, font, margin etc.”
This is the mistake, most of newbie theme developers do. On homepage you can put H1 tag for your site main title while on single pages you should put H1 tag to article title instead. For this you can use if else statements with is_home() or is_front_page() Conditional Tag. look at the example below.
<?phpif (is_home()) {
<h1>Code to Print Site Main Title Here</h1>
} else {
<h1>Code to Print Single Post Article Here</h1>
}
?>
This all depends upon the wordpress theme you are using. On above code i am just giving you an basic Idea, for what all i am talking about. I could help you more if you can share the header.php code of your theme.
Clear so far. I will give it a try (keeping backup copies) and if needed, come whimper again. The goal is to keep that blog name text the same but to remove H1 tag without doing any harm. I would rather set H1 headers manually for all the pages down in text area. In any other case your suggestion is deffinitely way to go.
Thank you for your patience and all help.
This information was extremely useful to me. The explanation is precise. I appreciate your efforts.
[...] recommended link: if you want to go in more detail, then check this link on use of header tags in wordpress [...]
very nice thank you for sharing with us . Yes it really will help in SEO
A unique note..!
Unbelievable how many websites and seo sites i read, and finally I find a clear and useful article. Thanks a bunch, mr.. Out of gratefulness Ill check ur other blogs
Thanks a lot, Deepak, for this important information. I would like you to clarify me a doubt: I am using a WP Clear 3.0 Theme (Solostream) and the WordPress 3.3.1. version, but I can´t use the H1 tag in my Post Title because the system does not allows me.
I mean, I can use these tags inside the article, but not in its title because there is an specifical section for it and I can´t make any change on it, including the use of tag H1. So, I would like to know if there is a way to solve this problem.
Thank you very much in advance & kind regards,
Migdi
Hi Migdi, If your current wordpress theme is not using H1 tags with post titles then you can add this manually by editing heading.php file. Read this article to understand it more http://www.blogtechnics.com/wordpress/how-to-use-h1-heading-tag-on-wordpress
Deepak, I already solved it. Thanks a lot for your help. I really appreciate it. Best regards,
Migdi
For many of the articles, the title speaks itself. Hence, it becomes extremely important to have a well designed titles structure.
Impressive Post !
Thanks for this article, I’ve been looking into h1 and h2 tags for the past couple of days as I made a bit of a mistake with my website. I accidentally used 4 h1 tags on my home page and it appeared that Google penalized my website in search results. Id made a few cosmetic changes to my site and went from page 1 to 4 because of this small change
Here’s a question:
How do I keep H1 on my site title on my “home page” but change it to H3 on a “page”?
I have the following code in my header.php:
<a href="” title=”" rel=”home”>
I am using a custom header image and my custom header.php looks like this:
/**
* Styles the header image displayed on the Appearance > Header admin panel.
*
* @since Twenty Twelve 1.0
*/
function twentytwelve_admin_header_style() {
?>
.appearance_page_custom-header #headimg {
border: none;
}
#headimg h1,
#headimg h2 {
line-height: 1.6;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
#headimg h1 {
font-size: 30px;
}
#headimg h1 a {
color: #515151;
text-decoration: none;
}
#headimg h1 a:hover {
color: #21759b;
}
#headimg h2 {
color: #777;
font: normal 13px/1.8 “HelveticaNeue-Light”, “Helvetica Neue Light”, “Helvetica Neue”, sans-serif;
margin-bottom: 24px;
}
#headimg img {
max-width: px;
}
<?php
}
—————————-
Any ideas?
You would have to change it on header.php file of your wordpress theme.
nope it is not working, anyway…. anyone got any ideas?
Jamie, it works only when used properly. Multiple occurrence of H1 tag on a single page may cause trouble.
can you suggest any wordpress plugin to add h1,h2,tags automatically
I don’t think there are such type of plugin available yet. Anyways, its not as much difficult as it seem, you can do it manually. May be in future we will develop such plugin
I have a blogspot blog. I have seen you blog title has h1 tag and post title has h2 tag on homepage and post title has h1 tag on post page. how can i do this to my blogger blog.
Nice article. Have you ever tested the impact of leaving out some of the tags? In particular I wonder what happens if an article starts with an h1 but then goes on with h4 or something like that.
Yea, h1 tags are very important for any site seo point of view. Thanks, nice share!
nice articale but please can anyone help me out my blog is about tech so where should i put H2 and H3 headings though i only use H1 as tittle
I admire the valuable information you offer in your articles. I will bookmark your blog and have my friends check up here often. I am quite sure they will learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else! very excellent job and preserve operating!
Fantastic Article. You explained the H tags in a way that no one has every explained them to me before. Great teaching skills. I always had challenges about using the H tags in the body of my articles, wasn’t sure if I can even use them.
Good Job.
[...] would like to now refer you to this great article by Deepak Singh entitled: “How to Use H1, H2, H3 & H4 Heading Tags on WordPress Blog” I strongly encourage you to please take a look at that blog post. It is one of the [...]
Excellent article thank you for explaining everything so well, really helpful. Can I ask, why is it 2-5 is best for H2 tags? I’ve been using my H2 tags quite liberally but then my articles tend to have numerous subsections, will using high numbers of h2 tags have any adverse effect on ranking, or would it be wiser to start merging sub sections and stick within the recommended number?
how to add H1 and H2 in theme of word press? plz guide
You will find such tags in your header.php file.
Thanks for the tip,Will be using these tags in my content now…
Hi Deepak,
the post is really useful, especially for a beginner. You are 100% right that these tags are really helpful, in fact, they are a major factor that affect the SEO. Keep posting useful posts like this..:)
[...] article is a combination of my hands on knowledge and articles I have read including http://www.blogtechnics.com/wordpress/how-to-use-h1-h2-h3-h4-heading-tags-on-wordpress-blog and http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_hn.asp and [...]
very nice post.It was very helpful.