Importance of H1, H2, H3… tags in search engine optimization
H1, H2, H3 etc. tags help the search engines understand what the page is all about. Most importance is given to keywords in H1 tags. Also make it a point to make sure that H2 tags have related keywords like H1 tags.
Why use H1, H2 and H3 tags ?
Let us elaborate a bit. Search engine algorithms or crawlers do not read your CSS to find out what font size is assigned to which keyword and rate the page accordingly rather search engines look for H1, H2 tags to find out what weightage is assigned to which keyword. Based on those tags search engines position your page for that keyword.
After the advent of CSS many designers have started not to use H1, H2 tags to define headings and subheadings. Well this is a big blunder. By omitting H1, H2 tags they are making the keyword visibility obscure to search engines. Search engines won’t be able to put weight to keywords by looking at the CSS of a particular page. So it is advisable to use H1, H2 tags for headings and sub-headings in a page.
For example, if we are dealing about Cars they we have to use the word ‘car’ in the H1 tag of the page. Then we might put keywords like ‘petrol cars’, ‘diesel cars’, ‘hybrid cars’ etc in H2 or H3 tags as the page demands.
When a crawler comes to such a page, it immediately knows that the page deals with cars. It will also know that the author has classified or defined the cars according to the fuel they use .
How to use H1, H2, H3 tags in a web page ?
Also keep in mind to use the H1 tag only once in a particular page. It does not mean that you can not use it twice but I am suggesting you to use it once so as not to confuse the search engine regarding the theme of the page. It might so happen that you use two H1 tags which have different meanings though they might be from the same topic.
For example you might be talking about in-flight food that airline companies serve. So there might be two H1 tags one with keywords like ‘airline company’ and another with ‘veg or non-veg food’. This might confuse the search engine crawler into thinking that the page deals with two completely different topics. Hence it will rank your page down when searched with either ’airline’ or with ‘veg or non-veg food’.
Also it is better to keep in mind that we should not skip the heading tag hierarchy. Though there is no hard and fast rule for this but it is better not to use the H3 tag and H1 tag and completely forgetting the H2 tag from the whole page. This helps to convey keyword visibility or keyword prominence to search engines.
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