I wrote a lot of blog posts.
Over the last year alone, here at A One Sol, I’ve published a minimum of four blogs per week. Some weeks, I even published more than four, sometimes with multiple daily posts.
Reading my blog for some time will let you know that everything I created is long-form content – just like the blog you’re reading right now.
This means it happens somewhere in the 2,000– 3,500+ word range. I’m not writing and will never write short 500-word pieces for publishing at a high rate.
Over the years, I’ve jotted down many broad-ranging topics about content marketing, website optimization, conversion, SEO, PPC, online marketing, and other related subjects. But today, I’m about to parcel out with you a seemingly small and fine SEO hack that will drastically perk up the performance of your content.
I’m writing about heading tags.
Most of you may know more about them than others. Some of you even use them in your blog, whether you’re familiar with their SEO value or unfamiliar.
So, I exploit heading tags in every post I publish. Even though I included them in this post, you’re currently poring over them.
While we go on, you’ll look at them throughout this post. However, I’ll bring your focus to them to let you know exactly what I’m writing about. So, it’s time to go around with this definitive guide to learn how to boost your content with heading tags.
What is a heading tag?
Before we go too deep into the specifics, let’s ensure we’re all on the same page here. Until now, in this blog post, I’ve used 2 heading tags:
- I used H1 for the title at the top of the page (How to Use Heading Tags to Get More Search Engine Traffic)
- And I used H2 for this subsection (What is a heading tag?)
But you will also see several more used heading tags throughout this guide.
As a definition, these are HTML tags and are responsible for singling out headers on a site. I want to break that definition further so you can understand it well.
HTML (hypertext markup language) is the language took to create webpages. Meanwhile, tags are the code that tells a web browser how the content should appear on the page. However, heading tags come up with 6 types; H1-H6.
Each heading tag can be ranked from highest to lowest in the order of importance, which is distinctly illustrated by the size.
How to Use Heading Tags
You can include these tags in your content before you bring out your work.
Here at A One Sol, we use WordPress. However, I usually write my posts outside of that platform. I prefer Google Docs to work because I like it and find it more user-friendly for writing long-form content.
If you bring Docs, Microsoft Word, or another platform to generate content, you can see those header options in the menu bar. I’m going to tell you here what it looks like in Google Docs:
It’s very simple.
The options for H4 and higher will not show up until after you include H3 tags in your content.
When you work directly in WordPress, the tags appear like this.
Again, it’s about as simple and easy as it gets.
To see if the headers are applied perfectly, you can view the page’s source code. So, in WordPress, click on the text editor to view the HTML code.
Even after publishing the content, you can view the source code of any page.
For instance, look at some of the posts I recently published here at A One Sol. Here is a post I jotted down about online marketing for beginners.
Though, I’ve alluded to the different headers above. I’m sure you’re taken to poring over content like this (especially on AOne Sol).
Now, looking at this might make you think that the font is larger. However, all the main text is written in size 12, the title is size 22, and the sub-header is size 17. While this may be the case, it could be more complex.
Changing the font size doesn’t even up to a heading tag.
But checking the source code will help you find what I mean.
Right-click on any webpage to view the source code of that page. You can do it with the post you’re reading right now. After that, click “view page source”, and it will show up with the source code. Here is what it looks like for How to Use Google Keyword Planner Tool for SEO in 2019.
Looking for those heading tags in the source code is like finding a needle in a haystack. So, use “command + f” to find them easily. Then just search for h1, h2, h3, h4, etc.
To make it clear, I picked out the tags.
Look at the H1 used for the title and an H3 tag used for the first sub-header on the page.
The benefit of heading tags
It’s time to know how heading tags are tied up with SEO as you can see that there’s another heading tag (above) I used for this subsection.
Amongst SEO experts, it’s chewed over for a while about how much of an influence heading tags have on search engine optimization.
Although you shouldn’t compare their value to things like DA (domain authority), PA (page authority), or backlinks, heading tags still play a vital role in your search ranking. How? Because they make it uncomplicated for search engines to figure out and make sense of your content.
However, you can read my blog on How I Boost My Domain Authority.
If you want bots should understand fully what your page offers, avoid having big walls of text without sub headers.
This can be compared to your complete site architecture as well.
As the homepage and top-level content of your website are on a hierarchy that dumbs down the crawlers to index pages, the heading tags show the significance of topics on the page.
Without headers, you depend upon search engines to get all your content at the same face value, which might not assist your search ranking.
John Mueller, the senior webmaster trends analyst at Google, was quoted describing that Google exploits Htags to figure out the structure of published text on a page.
Here it’s so obvious to know that they render some SEO value.
What’s more? Research from the Hook Agency comes up with a few of the most critical factors of on-page SEO.
2 of the top 10 on-page SEO factors related to your heading tags.
On the other hand, I’ve also found some verily excellent case studies on the sites that block this claim. So, here you’re going to see one of my favourites conducted by Search Eccentric.
The work is about a company named Motorcars Ltd.
Though they have been doing business for over 35 years, in the digital age, they fell backwards to rank in search engines for their target keywords. In the wake of analyzing the site, it was much clearer that a lot could be improved upon.
However, one thing that they changed was including H1 and H2 tags on the website.
The purpose behind this is to boost the visibility and make the content more SEO-friendly; straightforward. Now, see the results of this tactic.
The changes come up with a great impact on their search results.
When the heading tags were included, the company got the top-ranking position for 2 of their most special keyword phrases. They picked up a top 3 position for 5 of their targeted top terms.
Seeing the chart will help you show that they have jumped over hundreds of ranking spots.
Remember to get our SEO services.
This time, this can’t be chalked up to the header tags only. They also successfully cut off dead links and fixed some navigation issues. Meanwhile, the heading tags effectively played a vital role in grabbing the 2nd position for their target keywords.
How heading tags impact user experience.
In addition to the SEO advantages of heading tags, including these on your website must assist you in boosting the user experience.
What you will get as a result is more traffic to your website, frequent repeat visitors, and folks who will visit your website for longer periods. This, at the same time, build more value as well.
How could heading tags benefit users on your site?
For beginners, it only makes your text cleaner and more efficient. At the same time, 43 per cent of people say they skim articles. Of course, you should simplify your content by including headers.
As an instance, take this blog you’re poring over now.
Until then, you knew how heading tags work for SEO before you began reading this post. So, it’s not important to go through the first section. It’s easy for you to jump over it because I added the tags.
If I removed all the heading tags from this blog, it might build a large wall of text that you feel could be easier to read. Here I’d like to come up with an example to show you what I mean.
The content you see above looks like something other than scannable, and it’s only one excerpt of some pages in the same style.
At the same time, let’s look at another example, only this time with heading tags exploited by Conversion XL.
This is so easy to scan, and it’s visually attractive.
Is it feasible to have the same effect by getting the font bigger and bolder? All right, but why not benefit from the header tags to get a ranking?
If these are the heading tags or just larger font, I have to view the source code to show beyond doubt.
Seeing that means they used H2s and H3s for this blog section. Though it’s not visualized in the screenshot I just uploaded, the H1 tag was used for the title.
Heading tags good practices
Now that you know why you should include heading tags on your site, I’m going to go through some of the good practices to follow.
So, each good practice on my list is also about to come with a heading tag. As you start reading, you’ll know what I mean.
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Only have one H1 tag per page.
H1 tags should be saved for the title.
By default, the title on your blog should automatically become an H1. You must see the page source code and a text editor to ensure that.
If, for some reason, the title doesn’t automatically become an H1; you could always include it yourself.
Here is an idea that the H1 tag is critical. But adding 2 or 3 h1 tags will be less visually attractive, and it can also confuse crawlers when they’re going on with indexing your content.
Use natural keywords in headers.
You’ll always wish to add the keyword in your headers when feasible.
But it’s the common misconception that every heading you use should be stuffed with keywords. That is not the matter.
As with your generated content, the text should be more than natural and readable. That’s good if you take some keywords there. If it’s impossible, then never force it.
Google is undoubtedly an awesome resource for finding keywords to place in your headers. Just scroll down the page and discover related queries.
You were jotting down the blog post about the advantages of exercise. Here’s what those specific terms look like.
These keywords may be potential H2s or H3s of your blog.
You will not write “benefit of exercise Wikipedia” in your headers because that’s not good and doesn’t make sense. However, exercise benefits for men, the benefit of exercise in the morning, how long it takes, and how to maximize exercise benefits can all be appropriate and natural.
Douse heading tags generously.
Some people will advise you to use heading tags sparingly, but they’re misleading.
I’m not saying you need to put them every other line; you can use them as you feel fit. If you feel a post fits easily 3, then use 3. If it fits 10 or 15, use 10 or 15.
In many cases, the longer a blog is, the more heading tags you can exploit.
So, here’s another quote from John Mueller at Big G. He says you could use as many headings tags as you want.
Again, I’ll still stick with only the H1 tag. But for H2, H3, H4, H5 (and so on), use as many as you want.
In many cases, it is unnecessary to go beyond H3 or H4. SEO aside, that’s so complex for the reader. So, look for other ways to arrange your content instead.
Are you looking for an enterprise SEO company? Why not head over to A One Sol?
You can always use bold or italic to home in on something, as opposed to taking to H6.
Conclusion
Although heading tags are subtle yet strong, SEO hack.
In addition to displaying the main content to search engine crawlers, they simplify it for site users to consume content on your webpage.
As an author of A One Sol, I highly recommend including tags in your content. As you can see in this blog, I always exploit them.
