HTML headings (h1-h6 tags), html text formatting (strong, b, em, i, blockquote, pre tags). Rules for using headers H1-H6
The question arises, how do some sites gain an advantage over others and bypass them in search results? After all, the same optimization tools are used. The answer would seem obvious: due to external optimization and its unlimited resource. However, it's not just that.
There are also more complex stages of on-page optimization that many webmasters ignore. I'm talking primarily about the arrangement of headings h1-h6. For the most part, they are arranged incorrectly, or according to one pattern, without taking into account the specifics of the site. Only self-arrangement of these headings will help achieve maximum effect. I will talk about what headings h1-h6 are, why they are needed and how best to arrange them, in this article.
H1-h6 tags are used to highlight the most important parts of the text. They are also called accent tags. They are focused mainly on search engines, letting them understand which parts of the text contain more accurate information about the topic of the article and its keywords. Using h1-h6 tags makes it possible to gain an advantage when ranking sites by a search engine. However, for this you need to use them wisely.
In theory, everything is quite simple: the first level heading (h1) is used to highlight the name of the site. The second level heading (h2) focuses the search engine’s attention on the title of the article. Third-level headings (h3) highlight the subparagraphs of the article; headings h4, h5 and h6 can be used at discretion, highlighting both meaningful words in the text, as well as site bar headings and other significant elements. In reality, everything is a little more complicated: it does not always make sense to arrange headings as described above. For example, if you are only promoting individual pages site (as is done in the case of blogs), then there is no point in enclosing the site name in the h1 tag; it is better to save this tag for the title of the article, since it is this that carries the main thematic load. H2 tags can be used to highlight subparagraphs. The rest is by analogy. In other words, there are many schemes for placing h tags; you need to analyze your site, the specifics of its promotion, and arrange headings in accordance with your conclusions.
Why is what I say so important? Now many people use free platforms for running websites, or use standard templates. In them, the headings are very often poorly placed, which greatly limits the possibilities of internal optimization. Once you figure everything out yourself and do everything correctly, you get a great advantage for the future.
So, there are several rules for arranging headings h1-h6. I will present them below.
The picture is clickable
1.
Heading structure. This is the most important of the rules. Headings more high level(the lower the number, the higher the level) should be on the page above. That is, the h1 heading should always be located above the h2 heading, and it, in turn, above the h3 heading. And so on.
2.
Heading font size. This too prerequisite. The higher the heading level, the larger the font should be. The h1 heading will have the largest font. Heading fonts can be edited in styles. However, they usually have the correct sizes by default.
3.
H tags should not contain anything other than text. That is, it is strictly not recommended to include pictures, links and other content elements in them.
4.
h tags are not allowed to be used in conjunction with other accent tags.
5.
Since h1-h6 tags focus the search engine’s attention on important elements pages, such emphasis must be justified. The selected section of text must contain keywords or phrases, otherwise you can confuse the search engine, thereby only causing harm.
6.
The h1 tag is used only once on one page. No other options are allowed.
As you can see, nothing complicated. Much more important are the recommendations described above for the correct placement of accents. It is not necessary to use all accent tags on every page, just first three levels. It is worth noting that to correctly place headings, you may need some knowledge of html. The first commandment of a webmaster is to do no harm. Therefore, if you do not have such knowledge, then it is better to entrust this matter to someone else.
I said the main thing. Unfortunately, I cannot describe all possible situations. To beat your competitors, you need to not only carry out each stage of optimization efficiently, but also not skip any of the stages. Only then will you and your website achieve success. This concludes the article. Good luck!
Should H1 and TITLE be the same or should they be different? A long-standing question that inevitably arises at every meeting where there are SEO specialists. It's hard to say where he came from. Possibly due to inconsistency of recommendations search engines and examples in the TOP10.
Arguments for different title tags and H1: they say, the search engine will “think” that we want to strengthen the meaning of the keyword by double use, for which it will definitely punish :)
Arguments for the same tags: a quote in Yandex help for webmasters.
In order for the robot analyzing your site to be able to correctly highlight the most important sections and key pages, you need to... text in the TITLE tag for key pages coincided with its name (with the page title, highlighted, for example, with an H1 tag) and with the texts of links pointing to this page.
How do you actually make them the same or different? By and large, it doesn't matter. But there are a few things to consider.
— H1 and TITLE must intersect
If the title is about one thing, and the H1 is about another, then it will be more difficult for the search to determine which keywords the page is relevant to, and users will also be at a loss. Also, these sections of code help search engines form special elements in the snippet, such as breadcrumbs or quick links. In other words, there is no need to make TITLE and H1 completely different. Let's look at a few examples (just as a demonstration, without preliminary analysis of semantics).
The site is a salon of Italian furniture in Moscow. Main keywords: Italian furniture salon, Italian furniture...
TITLE: Salon of Italian furniture in Moscow. Buy furniture from Italy | Salon name
H1: Welcome
Not an optimal option, since there are no promoted keywords in the H1 at all. The greeting can be written in text.
H1: Exclusive furniture from Italy
It’s already better, since the tags intersect using the key “furniture from Italy”. But it may not be in priority requests.
H1: Italian furniture salon Name-Salon
A normal header for the main request, nothing extra.
As you can see, there is no point in making H1 and TITLE completely identical, but they should still intersect.
— H1 and TITLE are visible to users at different stages of interaction with the site
The user often sees TITLE before going to the site. H1 is already visible when it is on the page. In this regard, it is better to make H1 short and maximally describing the essence landing page, much depends on its purpose. As for TITLE, in addition to the content of keywords, it should motivate the user to click (transfer). Otherwise, you can optimize text relevance, but not optimize conversion to clicks and, accordingly, not receive all the traffic.
For example, the radio-controlled helicopters section on the website.
H1: Radio controlled helicopters (logical)
TITLE: Buy radio-controlled helicopters with delivery in Moscow
Here the word “buy” calls for action, and “delivery in Moscow” removes a number of questions before clicking.
Information topic: how to weave bracelets from rubber bands
H1: How to weave bracelets from rubber bands on a machine
TITLE: Rubber bracelets: step by step instructions and weaving patterns with photos and videos
“Step-by-step instructions and diagrams” not only expand the semantics, but also increase the likelihood of a click on the title. A person who searches for “how to weave” just means step-by-step instructions with photos, but may not include this in their request.
— TITLE is catching up on social networks
If the code is not further customized, then when users share a page on a social network, the title is taken from the title. If it is spam, then this prevents both the transition from social networks and sharing in principle. If it’s just short like H1, then this is also a bad option.
This point is most relevant for information and news projects. But some of them only work on social networks, so take an example from headlines like “This woman could no longer look at herself in the mirror. And this is what she did…” is not always correct for SEO. Just remember when composing titles that they may end up as headlines on social networks.
— TITLE may contain additional key phrases
To promote the page not only for selected mid-frequency phrases, but also for adjacent ones, as well as a large pool of low-frequency phrases, you can add some words from the core family to the title. Accordingly, this will distinguish it from the H1 tag.
For example, we have a pool of requests: installation of bitumen shingles, installation of flexible tiles, instructions for installing tiles, technology for installing tiles, technology for laying bitumen shingles, laying bitumen shingles, installation of flexible tiles video, etc., etc.
H1: Installation instructions for flexible bitumen shingles
TITLE: Installation of flexible tiles, laying technology. Price, video
Here the title and H1 are completely different, intersecting only in some words (installation, bitumen, shingles). There is no point in inserting all the words from the core into the title or into the H1, it will look spammy, but dividing the words into code sections (including other headings) is a good strategy.
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In view of recent events in the world of SEO, text factors have begun to carry significant weight in rankings. And if a couple of years ago you could give up on text design, now you will pay for it.
So, let's start with the basics -.
Meta tag H1: design example and basic information
Offers 6 multi-level headings that indicate how important the text block following the heading is.
So the tag
is the most important first level heading, and the tag denotes sixth-level headings, the least significant. By default, the title tag is h1 displayed most large print and stands out as “bold”, headings that are lower in rank should accordingly be smaller.
Heading tags refer to block elements: tag
always starts with new line, and after it on the next line there are other elements. Moreover, to make your text look aesthetically pleasing, I recommend indenting it before and after headings.
How to insert an H1 heading tag into text on a website?
First level header
Using a Key in a Tag: H1 Tag Optimization
Meta h1 tags -h6 must be used for its intended purpose, strictly observing the hierarchy.
The fact is that search robots are very sensitive to headlines and what they contain. The importance and degree of attention of the search engine is determined by the level of the heading (decreases from h1 to h6). Therefore we strongly recommend
use the key in the h1 tagand phrases in the text of headings.
Title tag
(the first level heading) has the greatest weight, of course. Therefore, its textual content must be taken with particular seriousness.
- Insert tag
It is possible only at the top of the site page, above the headings of other levels. Also, many admin panels have a special field for the h1 heading.
- You should avoid the chaotic use of headings of different levels and place them “as you’re lucky.” The search engine (and users) is unlikely to like this.
- Under no circumstancesuse meta tag
more than once on a page.
- By default in different browsers Headings look different: they differ in font sizes and indents. Therefore, we advise you to adjust these parameters using styles. BUT! Don't go overboard with reducing the font, because... search robots pay attention to this. We also do not recommend making the title font size smaller than the body text.
- Do larger size title font low level We also do not recommend it. If your
will be more than , then the search robot will react negatively to this.
- And please stop using emphasis tags (strong, em, b, i) in your headings. The content of title tags has a greater impact on the relevance of a page compared to highlight tags.
According to the majority of SEO experts (and we join them), the content of the text inside the strong tags (bold text) in terms of significance approximately corresponds to the content of the h5-level heading. And this is a so-so level.
- Using the key in the h1 tagNecessarily! It is best if this is the main key phrase (keywords that are included in completely other semantic keywords on this page).
- The text content of the title should be different from the title tag.
How to check the h1 tag on a page
To check how many main headings you have there and correct a situation in which there is more than one, just open the page code.
Check number of h1 tags
You can do this either using your browser or in the admin panel. At the same time, no additional extensions not required.
Ctrl + Shift + C or F12
Hotkeys that will help you open the page code.
Is it possible to omit the h1 tag and other subheadings?
I have come across this question several times on the Internet and I want to give a detailed answer to it. And a cool SEO specialist from our studio, Oleg Vasiliev, will help me with this.
In the field search engine optimization It is very difficult to give unambiguous answers to questions. This has nothing to do with the specialist’s competence, although there is some truth in this. Each question is supposed to achieve some goal. Based on this, the answers to the questions may already vary, and you may get a completely different result.
The global goal of search engines such as Google, Yandex is quite simple - it is necessary to provide the user with the most useful information regarding the entered request. Search engines achieve this by examining a site based on a number of factors. In order for your site to be shown to the user, you must meet these factors as closely as possible so that the search engine decides that it has achieved its global goal.
One of the criteria for successful ranking is information that meets the user’s needs, is up-to-date and correctly structured.
As for the structure, it is this that helps the user quickly find the information he is looking for. For these purposes, information should be divided into small paragraphs, lists (where necessary), headings and subheadings should be used.
The h1 heading helps the user understand general meaning page content. As a rule, the text on the page has a very specific semantic unit, it is one, therefore there should be one main heading. Further, the content, if the structure suggests, can be divided into small semantic blocks, and each block will have its own subtitle. It is very important to observe nesting, that is, after H1 you must use H2, and after H2 you must use H3. Everything is quite logical.
Headings and subheadings should be meaningful and not used for other purposes.
Now let's get back to the question:
Is it possible to omit the h1 tag and other subheadings?
The answer is obvious: You can, if promoting your website on the Internet is not particularly important to you.
A competent, eye-catching article title can attract attention and visitors to the site. This is one of the most important components in SEO optimization of an Internet project. In this post I will tell you what headings h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 are and how to write them. In addition, you will learn about the main page title - title.
But let's talk about everything in order.
What is title
So, title is a special tag located at the beginning of the html code that briefly describes the contents of a specific page on the site. About header title it is written in more detail and in detail in this article.
IN source code the main header looks like this:
Who is a freelancer and how to become one?
This type of header, for example, on CMS Joomla created in automatic mode. That is, the title that is written for each material and is the title title. Its importance for internal SEO optimization of a website is not exaggerated, since it is what the Internet user sees in search bar upon a specific request.
What is an h1 header
Heading h1– these are several well-structured phrases that contain almost the entire meaning of the material being presented. In other words, this is the most important heading, located at the beginning of the page.
The same specific set of words as for title is generated in the Joomla h1 header. Here's what it looks like in source code:
Who is a freelancer and how to become one
A lot of comprehensive information has been written about whether this is good or bad, but still there is no specific definition. Here's what the well-known blogger Devaka says about this.
It becomes clear that the Joomla engine, like other CMSs, greatly simplifies working with the site, since when creating headers there is no need to edit the html code.
The remaining headers are created directly in text editor. Depending on the panel and the set of active elements, a certain function is selected, which in the JCE text editor is called “Paragraph”. By moving the slider, you can see that here all existing headings are presented to your attention, starting from h1 and ending with h6.
How to write h1 heading and title
In the field of SEO optimization, there are clear rules for writing basic tags, namely:
1. Keywords. In the eyes of search engines, a well-presented content looks much more promising and attractive if at the beginning of its title title and h1 you write words that answer key queries. How to recognize them? There is a special one for this online service wordstat.yandex.ua.
2. Readability. You can’t just shove keywords into the title. The text must be natural and at the same time easy to read, otherwise search engines will consider such an act as spam. When writing your h1 and title, try to place your keywords as close to the beginning as possible. Another thing is the headings h1, h2, h3... They can be inclined and diluted with certain thematic words.
3. No duplicates. In order for site pages to rank higher in search results, V html code there should be no duplicate headings. To check pages, just open the site in a browser and press the hot keys Ctrl+U, and then Ctrl+F. In the search window, enter h1 and all present symbols will be highlighted with a yellow background.
4. Length. The title tag is allowed to use 70 characters because more It simply simply won’t fit in the snippet.
5. Uniqueness. Each heading should be unique within a specific Internet project, thus making it easier for users to navigate and find exactly what they need.
7. Dividing marks It is advisable not to use.
Proper use of h2 – h6 tags
Headings h2 – h6 help to navigate the presented text, making the material more attractive in the eyes of readers and search bots. Therefore, there are some strict rules when creating them, namely:
The structure of headings should be arranged in such a way that a consistent hierarchy is formed. Let's look at a clear example. Let’s say the author writes an article on the topic “Freestyle wrestling.” In this case, the subheadings will look like this.
Heading tags refer to block elements: tag
always starts with new line, and after it on the next line there are other elements. Moreover, to make your text look aesthetically pleasing, I recommend indenting it before and after headings.
How to insert an H1 heading tag into text on a website?
First level header
Using a Key in a Tag: H1 Tag Optimization
Meta h1 tags -h6 must be used for its intended purpose, strictly observing the hierarchy.
The fact is that search robots are very sensitive to headlines and what they contain. The importance and degree of attention of the search engine is determined by the level of the heading (decreases from h1 to h6). Therefore we strongly recommend
use the key in the h1 tagand phrases in the text of headings.Title tag
(the first level heading) has the greatest weight, of course. Therefore, its textual content must be taken with particular seriousness.
- Insert tag
It is possible only at the top of the site page, above the headings of other levels. Also, many admin panels have a special field for the h1 heading.
- You should avoid the chaotic use of headings of different levels and place them “as you’re lucky.” The search engine (and users) is unlikely to like this.
- Under no circumstancesuse meta tag
more than once on a page. - By default in different browsers Headings look different: they differ in font sizes and indents. Therefore, we advise you to adjust these parameters using styles. BUT! Don't go overboard with reducing the font, because... search robots pay attention to this. We also do not recommend making the title font size smaller than the body text.
- Do larger size title font low level We also do not recommend it. If your
will be more than
, then the search robot will react negatively to this.
- And please stop using emphasis tags (strong, em, b, i) in your headings. The content of title tags has a greater impact on the relevance of a page compared to highlight tags.
According to the majority of SEO experts (and we join them), the content of the text inside the strong tags (bold text) in terms of significance approximately corresponds to the content of the h5-level heading. And this is a so-so level.
- Using the key in the h1 tagNecessarily! It is best if this is the main key phrase (keywords that are included in completely other semantic keywords on this page).
- The text content of the title should be different from the title tag.
How to check the h1 tag on a page
To check how many main headings you have there and correct a situation in which there is more than one, just open the page code.
Check number of h1 tags
You can do this either using your browser or in the admin panel. At the same time, no additional extensions not required.
Ctrl + Shift + C or F12
Hotkeys that will help you open the page code.
Is it possible to omit the h1 tag and other subheadings?
I have come across this question several times on the Internet and I want to give a detailed answer to it. And a cool SEO specialist from our studio, Oleg Vasiliev, will help me with this.
In the field search engine optimization It is very difficult to give unambiguous answers to questions. This has nothing to do with the specialist’s competence, although there is some truth in this. Each question is supposed to achieve some goal. Based on this, the answers to the questions may already vary, and you may get a completely different result.
The global goal of search engines such as Google, Yandex is quite simple - it is necessary to provide the user with the most useful information regarding the entered request. Search engines achieve this by examining a site based on a number of factors. In order for your site to be shown to the user, you must meet these factors as closely as possible so that the search engine decides that it has achieved its global goal.
One of the criteria for successful ranking is information that meets the user’s needs, is up-to-date and correctly structured.
As for the structure, it is this that helps the user quickly find the information he is looking for. For these purposes, information should be divided into small paragraphs, lists (where necessary), headings and subheadings should be used.
The h1 heading helps the user understand general meaning page content. As a rule, the text on the page has a very specific semantic unit, it is one, therefore there should be one main heading. Further, the content, if the structure suggests, can be divided into small semantic blocks, and each block will have its own subtitle. It is very important to observe nesting, that is, after H1 you must use H2, and after H2 you must use H3. Everything is quite logical.
Headings and subheadings should be meaningful and not used for other purposes.
Now let's get back to the question:
Is it possible to omit the h1 tag and other subheadings?
The answer is obvious: You can, if promoting your website on the Internet is not particularly important to you.
A competent, eye-catching article title can attract attention and visitors to the site. This is one of the most important components in SEO optimization of an Internet project. In this post I will tell you what headings h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 are and how to write them. In addition, you will learn about the main page title - title.
But let's talk about everything in order.
What is title
So, title is a special tag located at the beginning of the html code that briefly describes the contents of a specific page on the site. About header title it is written in more detail and in detail in this article.
IN source code the main header looks like this:
This type of header, for example, on CMS Joomla created in automatic mode. That is, the title that is written for each material and is the title title. Its importance for internal SEO optimization of a website is not exaggerated, since it is what the Internet user sees in search bar upon a specific request.
What is an h1 header
Heading h1– these are several well-structured phrases that contain almost the entire meaning of the material being presented. In other words, this is the most important heading, located at the beginning of the page.
The same specific set of words as for title is generated in the Joomla h1 header. Here's what it looks like in source code:
Who is a freelancer and how to become one
A lot of comprehensive information has been written about whether this is good or bad, but still there is no specific definition. Here's what the well-known blogger Devaka says about this.
It becomes clear that the Joomla engine, like other CMSs, greatly simplifies working with the site, since when creating headers there is no need to edit the html code.
The remaining headers are created directly in text editor. Depending on the panel and the set of active elements, a certain function is selected, which in the JCE text editor is called “Paragraph”. By moving the slider, you can see that here all existing headings are presented to your attention, starting from h1 and ending with h6.
How to write h1 heading and title
In the field of SEO optimization, there are clear rules for writing basic tags, namely:
1. Keywords. In the eyes of search engines, a well-presented content looks much more promising and attractive if at the beginning of its title title and h1 you write words that answer key queries. How to recognize them? There is a special one for this online service wordstat.yandex.ua.
2. Readability. You can’t just shove keywords into the title. The text must be natural and at the same time easy to read, otherwise search engines will consider such an act as spam. When writing your h1 and title, try to place your keywords as close to the beginning as possible. Another thing is the headings h1, h2, h3... They can be inclined and diluted with certain thematic words.
3. No duplicates. In order for site pages to rank higher in search results, V html code there should be no duplicate headings. To check pages, just open the site in a browser and press the hot keys Ctrl+U, and then Ctrl+F. In the search window, enter h1 and all present symbols will be highlighted with a yellow background.
4. Length. The title tag is allowed to use 70 characters because more It simply simply won’t fit in the snippet.
5. Uniqueness. Each heading should be unique within a specific Internet project, thus making it easier for users to navigate and find exactly what they need.
7. Dividing marks It is advisable not to use.
Proper use of h2 – h6 tags
Headings h2 – h6 help to navigate the presented text, making the material more attractive in the eyes of readers and search bots. Therefore, there are some strict rules when creating them, namely:
The structure of headings should be arranged in such a way that a consistent hierarchy is formed. Let's look at a clear example. Let’s say the author writes an article on the topic “Freestyle wrestling.” In this case, the subheadings will look like this.