Header Tags

Many SEO developers disregard the power and true use of header tags, and unknowingly dismiss them as old school style elements that were used before the age of CSS domination.

But in fact, header tags are these days recognised as one of the most important elements to place keywords in a web document (number one being the title). You can use CSS to tone down or remove the preset styles, but do not avoid using them or dismiss them as retro style formatting.

Placing header tags throughout your web page creates a document outline. Think of these chapters in a book, that refer to the content of the text that follows. They provide a quick glance at the content of your web page, and break it down into useable chunks so that a search engine can reference it when the relevant keyword or phrase is searched for.

The document outline is among a specific set of elements that are factored into a search engines' ranking alogorthm, so it is important to structure your headings in an effective way.

Think about using header tags logically, don't skip or jump tags. Search engines weigh header tags from top to bottom (H1 - H6), so use the heirarchy to your advantage.

Consider relative frequency in the number of header tags used, you don't want to overdose and have your page content regarded as spam. Most SEO developers only ever use the H1 tag once per page for fear of being penalised.

The guidelines for creating a valid document outline are very simple. Just remember to keep things honest and legitimate; over use or keyword spamming of header tags often leads to a heavy use penalty.

As a whole, header tags (H1 to H6) carry much more weight as a ranking factor in comparison with plain body text, and search engines look on these in their ranking alorithms, and incorporate them into the ranking equation, and as such, it makes perfect sense to reinforce a document outline that can effectively communicate keywords back to curious searchbots inspecting and indexing your web pages.

How do I create a document outline?

Use the header tags in a logical order. Place one H1 tag somewhere near the beginning of the document, and work your way through the remaing header tags as you write more page content. See the example below:

<H1>Contemporary Travel Photography</H1>

Be honest. Don't invent extra headings just to have a rich document outline. Search engines won't take much notice of a rich document outline if the actual content doesn't match.