Heading Tags


Words placed within heading tags (often referred to as header tags, headings, or "h" tags) carry more weight with the search engines than plain text.  An <h1> (header one) tag should always be used as the visible title within the design of the page.  The <h1> tag should incorporate the primary keywords from the title META tag of the page.  "Heading Tags", for instance, is the <h1> tag used for this page.  

It is a good idea to separate the text content on all pages into several paragraphs, giving each paragraph its own header which contains the keywords for that page. 

Heading Tag Guidelines

  • Put the META title of the page at the top and designate it as a "header one" using the code below.
    • <h1>Primary Target Terms Indentified Within The Title</h1>
  • Additional header tags should be added throughout the body text as headers for individual paragraph headings - secondary keywords should be used within the text of each header.
    • <h2>Secondary Target Terms </h2>
    • <h3>Tertiary Target Terms</h3>

Example

SEO - The More You Know  <-----  HEADER <h1>
If the Internet were the world's largest library - which essentially, it is...

Search Engines - A Little History  <-----  HEADER <h1>
Search engines began in the early 1990's as a means to index, organize, and categorize...

Search Engine Optimization - Where We'd Be Without It  <-----  HEADER <h1>
The rules and criteria of Search Engine Optimization were created...

SEO Today - Not Your Big Brother's SEO  <-----  HEADER <h1>
How many times have you heard, "I know a guy who knows a guy...