The prominence of heading tags is unknown for many content Publishers. As the heading tags help search engines as well as your readers. In this guide, you’ll understand what h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, & h6 tags are all about.
Heading tags are something that is not directly observed by the front-end user. But it plays a significant role in the backend part. You can easily distinguish these H tags based on their size and dimensions. This is one of the steps to recognize headings and make your readers understand the relativity between paragraphs and sections.
There are huge benefits of optimizing heading tags based on the content structure. This will help you drive tons of traffic and as well as help your audience to understand the content on the web page better.
Heading tags are one of the important parts while you are doing on-page SEO Optimisation. So in this blog post, you will understand what are HTML header tags are all about. What are the different types of H tags and how to write SEO header tags with examples?
Page Contents
What are heading tags?
Headings are represented in the form of a short sentence. Basically, this short sentence will describe everything about the article or it can even be a paragraph or a section of the article. However, headings are used to create a content structure so that a user or a search engine crawler can go through it easily.
Headings help the readers to understand the content. As the content can be properly structured by using heading tags, users can easily understand the content that you have developed on the particular web page.
These tags are basically HTML-coded subjects that are used within a webpage.
HTML header tags help in letting the readers know which is the top heading and the other subsequent headings. It plays a key role in distinguishing the heading tags which can be a major and a minor.
There are basically six types of heading tags. These tags help to structure the content better so that it is easily readable and understandable. It usually benefits in terms of SEO also as the search crawler can index your pages much better.
Different types of heading tags
As you know, the heading tags have been differentiated into six major types. This helps to position the content hierarchy better. Because with the help of multiple header tags, it is easy for you to develop content. It usually starts from H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6 tags. These are the HTML tags that are used for headings to diversify the content.
This even helps your readers and reflect better on the search engine result page whenever the keyword has been searched. You might have come across the term schema markup, these are the elements that act as a featured snippet for your blog post. To achieve this, you have to optimize your content properly with the help of heading tags.
Now let us understand the six types of heading tags.
What is the H1 tag?
H1 tag is basically the first heading tag of the blog post for a web page. You need to use only one H1 tag for a particular page. If you use multiple H1 tags, this can confuse the search engine crawler and the page quality score will also decrease.
You need to frame the H1 tag in such a way that it is the only heading that describes the entire content all about.
What is the H2 tag?
H2 tags are the subsidiary heading tags that come after the H1 tag. Basically, there is no limit to use H2 tags in a blog post. But you need to ensure that it has been properly structured and utilized effectively.
H2 tags are popularly positioned as a secondary heading for a blog post for the web page. This contains the secondary set of SEO focused keywords which helps the search engine crawler and readers to understand better.
What are H3, H4, H5, and H6 tags?
H3, H4, H5, H6 tags act as subsidiary heading tags for H2. Basically, if you have any paragraph that requires further explanation, you need to utilize either one of the subsidiary H tags.
There is no limit to using these tags as they can be used for multiple purposes. If you properly utilize these subsidiary heading HTML tags, only then the content will be resourceful.
Why do we need to use heading tags?
Having immense potential in terms of ranking your blog post on a page on search engine and till enhancing visitors experience. The benefits that you are going to get from using heading tags are limitless. This is only possible by utilizing the proper structure of the H tags. And through this method, you are bound to receive better results.
Here are the following ways that you are going to get benefits by using heading tags.
1. Helps in understanding the content better for readers
Heading tags is one of the best ways to make your audience understand what the content is all about. When you can structure the content properly by using heading tags, then nothing can be better than this to convey a message. Because content is all about giving information to your readers.
When your readers are unable to understand the content, then the article that you have developed goes in vain. So to eliminate this barrier, you need to use heading tags to represent the article better. This is one of the best ways to improve your website experience for users.
2. Easy to scroll through
When you use heading tags across the content, users can quickly access the section that they desire. This helps them to get the content which they need from the particular article. A much-required strategy to make the article resourceful for your audience.
If every blog post has been properly categorized with headings and subheadings, you can notice a difference in page experience. This section will help the readers to access the information that they were looking for. This saves time and there would be a better engagement with your website.
3. Helps in ranking the blog post or web page
When you properly use the heading tags, there are huge chances for your blog post or web page to rank on the search engine. As the H1 tag is one of the most prominent headings, it should be included with all the primary keywords. And with this, there are subsidiary H tags that are created with other focused SEO keywords, this together makes the blog post rank.
Google or any other search engine crawler gives more weightage for a page that is properly optimized with the H tags. Heading tags play an important role in on-page optimisation, this will be an important strategy for you to adopt.
4. Your blog post can be featured in the snippet section
This can be one of the most rewarding results when you optimize your content perfectly. When you can get featured on the search engine results section, you are bound to receive huge clicks for your website. This even helps to improve your CTR scores and as well as capture a huge set target audience.
When you get represented in the featured snippets, then automatically all your other blog posts will also be given relevance. This really helps to boost your page authority score of your website that will eventually increase your domain authority or domain rating score as well.
5. Helps the search engine crawler to understand better
By properly utilizing the heading tags, the search engine crawler will understand your content better. To make the search engine understand how your page structure works and the major topics with their subsidiary topics, you need heading tags for it.
This can easily boost the SEO performance of your on-page activities. Keeping in mind that the 2021 trends of SEO are all about page experience. This is the best way for your search engine crawler to know how well your website is optimized.
6. Get better conversion
If your website is pitching about any product or service, heading tags are one of the best ways to convert your audience as customers. When you use engaging heading tags which are irresistible for readers to go for your product or service, then nothing can be better than this.
Heading tags are highly result-oriented in terms of conversion. You can generally see any product or service landing page that has been extensively utilizing heading tags to convert the customers. This strategy helps to create effectiveness in your content.
7. Helps to make your users stay long
When you are able to develop content that the readers want, heading tags is one of the best strategies to make your users stay long. Because you can divide the paragraph between various subsections, and at least one of the sub-sections will be an interesting source for the reader. Through this, it is very easy to make your readers access all the parts of the content.
This can even convert a non-exciting topic into an exciting one. All by using the heading tags. The H tags can easily create a huge impact in terms of your reader’s perspective. This even reduces the bounce rate as well by increasing the average time spent on the web pages.
Heading tags structure
Below is the infographic where you can see the dos and don’ts of using heading tags. If you follow this pattern, you will easily see results in getting a better response from the search engine.
You need to adapt the usage of H tags based on the need and requirements of the content.
Image source: Seobility
The above infographic is the complete structure for you to position your article blog post. The same rule is applicable even for web pages when they are offering products or services to their audience.
Note that you should never over-optimize the content with H tags. This can even lead to a negative effect on the performance of your web pages.
How to add H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 tags for a website?
As per the heading structure, now it’s time for you to add the H tags.
Remember that the process is almost similar for all platforms. Here we get you some of the popular platforms where you can add heading tags respectively.
Follow this step-by-step guide to easily add H tags for a website or a blog.
How to add heading tags to the WordPress website?
WordPress is one of the popular CMS platforms which makes your life easier while adding H tags. There are basically three ways to add heading tags to the WordPress website. One is through the visual editor, the second is Gutenberg editor and the third is a text-based editor.
Steps to add heading tags through the classic editor
1. Select the sentence that you wish to convert to the H tag.
2. Located on the left top corner of the classic editor, you get an option of the dropdown. This is usually marked by Paragraph or Heading as default.
3. Click the dropdown.
4. You will find the list of Heading tags for your reference.
5. You can select any H tag between H1 to H6 based on your preference.
6. The marked sentence will automatically convert into a heading tag.
Steps to add heading tags through the text editor
1. Select the sentence that you wish to convert into the heading.
2. On the right top corner, you can find an option stated as Text.
3. When you click that, you will automatically go to the text-based editor.
4. Now you can see the sentence that you wish to convert to the H tag. You just need to put the HTML script before the start and end of the sentence.
Below are some HTML tags examples for you:
5. When you insert the desired H tag, your text converts into a Heading tag.
Steps to add heading tags through Gutenberg editor
1. Go to the backend Gutenberg editor
2. Add or Create a block
3. When you click add, you will find the option of Heading. Select it.
4. When the heading block appears, you just need to put text there.
5. This automatically converts into a Heading tag.
Note: If you have any pre-existing text that you want to convert to Heading. Just select the sentence, on the left side, you can find a dropdown. You can toggle it between paragraphs to Heading. You can do this the same way for the classic editor as well.
How to add heading tags for the Shopify website?
Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms. There is a huge scope of opportunities for utilizing heading tags for the products that are listed on the E-Commerce store. The process to add heading tags is almost similar and convenient like we did in WordPress.
There are two ways to add H tags that are similar to WordPress.
Adding heading tags through the visual editor:
1. Enter into a website page or a product listing
2. When you get to the page details section, you can find the title and content.
3. There’s a letter “A” marked on the left top corner which you need to select.
4. When you click the dropdown, you will find the range of H tags.
5. Select it and add or change your sentence to the heading.
Adding heading tags through the code-based editor:
1. On the top right corner of the editor. You will find a <> button.
2. Select it and you will enter the text-based code editor.
3. Add the same HTML tags as we discussed above for the text.
This is as simple as it is.
Let me know if you face any issues while doing this or any of the above steps.
To sum it up
Heading tags is an underdog when it comes to ranking your pages and increasing your visitor’s experience.
Using H tags has the sole purpose of making the content understandable, accessible, and readable for your users. When you match your reader’s search intent with the H tags, then this is the best way to optimize content for them.
The next key benefit would be in terms of SEO. However, this is one of the most important while you are doing on-page optimization. When you optimize your blog posts and web pages properly with the H tags, you will start to see great results in traffic. Because search engines can easily crawl your site which will eventually increase your relevancy score.
Pen down your opinions and experience about this strategy.
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