Often I see articles in newspapers and magazines that tell you to "use keywords" and "refine text." While doing these things is a very good idea, where is the best place to put your keywords? Or a better question might be, where is the best place to put your most important keywords?
Whenever somebody asks me how they can get more "organic"1 search engine traffic, the first things I look at are the Page Title and Heading 1 tags (<title> and <h1>). If they don't exist, or if they aren't being used well ("Welcome" isn't a good main heading), it's often the easiest way to improve.
The trouble is, sometimes what looks like a Heading 1 really isn't. It could be a bold tag, or any other HTML tag that's just styled to look like a heading 1 tag. Or worse, it could be an image masquerading as text. Search engines can't read text that's inside an image, or any sort of rich media like Flash. (And if you wrap your image in a Heading 1 tag, that still doesn't count.)
Page Titles and Heading 1's Are the Perfect Place for Your Best Keywords
Don't cheat yourself out of potential traffic (not to mention clarity) by not using these tags to their fullest potential. Note that it's the Page Title that shows up in search engine result pages (SERPs). Sometimes you hear people say that your website is somebody's first impression of you/your biz, but often the first thing people see is your page title on a SERP. Make it clear and inviting to click. Got a sale going on? Let 'em know on the SERP, don't wait for them to get to your site. Then bring it home with a good Heading 1 tag that assures people they are in the right place.
What I did here is create a simple online tool that will tell you what the Page Title and Heading One tags are on the provided page. The idea is to have something that slogs through the underlying HTML for you to see what's really going on. I've been quite surprised with some of the results. For example, I've seen a website that uses a Heading One tag for every link in the menu bar, totaling seventeen of them when you should only use one.
For more detail, here's relating article I wrote. And for excruciating detail, check out SEOBook.com.
Now let's get started, and check a page!
1"Organic" refers to search engine traffic that happens naturally, as opposed to being paid for. On a Google SERP, organic results are in the main part of the page, whereas paid placement is located to the right and sometimes at the top of the page.
By Matt August 11, 2011 - 7:20 am
@Dave – Hi there, thanks for the comment! This tool just checks the outputted HTML of the assembled page, it has no way of delving into your php code to see where the tag is being generated. I believe the tool will tell you if there’s more than one H1 tag detected. From what I’ve seen/understand of WordPress templates, the header.php file shouldn’t be handling this tag – hopefully that helps!
By Dave August 11, 2011 - 3:25 am
I’ve heard that for a WordPress blog, you should change the single.php/index.php/page.php to H1. However I’ve also heard that you should just change the Header.php to H1.My question is does your tool check the Header.php file also rather than just the page? Does it matter if the Header.php file is changed to H1 as well as the single.php/index.php/page.php pages too.I dont want duplicate H1 tags on my pages. Any info on this would be great. thanks….
By Matt December 29, 2010 - 3:29 pm
Thanks Paul – that is indeed a puzzle, but my guess is that some invalid markup is tripping up the parser I use. You can validate your pages and see any errors here: http://validator.w3.org
By paulleemagic December 29, 2010 - 3:18 pm
Hi
Thanks for the response, but if I check this page below it shows up as having h1 tags & the (span is there also)
http://www.paulleemagic.com/Corporate_Magician.html
Thanks for your time & expertise
Paul
By Matt December 28, 2010 - 8:52 am
Hi Paul – thanks for the note! There’s actually a span tag that has inline styling applied to it, which is inside your h1 tag, and this tool isn’t picking up on that. I’ll keep this in mind for any future updates, thanks!
By paulleemagic December 24, 2010 - 10:59 pm
I have a h1 on my page but this tool is now seeing it , it says no h1 tag
Thanks Love the tool it works on my other pages of site but not the home page
By Sue December 4, 2010 - 3:11 pm
Thank you so much for the h1 tag checker and the informative article. The checker really helped me develop the code to make my h1 header perfect for my site.