What are header tags and their Role in SEO (search engine optimization)

Header tags SEO is one of the main on page SEO techniques. This purpose of this post to make you understand how you can optimize Header tags in your post to improve search engine visibility.

What are header tags

Header tags are nothing but headings in your post. If you see the HTML code of your post then you would find something like below-

<h1> your post title</h1>

…

<h2> Main heading </h2>

…

<h3> Sub heading </h2>

There are basically 6 types of header tags –

<h1>This is heading 1</h1>
<h2>This is heading 2</h2>
<h3>This is heading 3</h3>
<h4>This is heading 4</h4>
<h5>This is heading 5</h5>
<h6>This is heading 6</h6>

Role of Header tags in Search engine optimization(SEO)

If you’re not aware then I must tell you that using your target keyword (the keyword for which you want your post to appear on Google first page, also known as Focus or main keyword) in Header tags will improve the Search engine visibility for your target keyword. For example if you are writing a post on Cars and want your post to appear on first page for keyword “Car” then you should use term or keyword “Car” in your header tags.

What’s the best practice to use header tags for better On page SEO

Most commonly used header tags are: H1, H2 and H3. Rests are not frequently used and as per my understanding don’t have much value in terms of SEO.

Generally you would see that most of the webmaster recommends using “Main keyword” in H1, H2 and H3 tags. However I would say that Search engines are smarter now days and they would be able to figure out which one has real values and which is spammy. Hence my advice to you is that not to overdo it, Use SEOPressor plugin to perform an over-optimization check–

Use of H1 tags: Title of your post is a H1 tag. A post should have only one title tag as far as SEO is concerned. Using more than One H1 tag is not recommended.

Use of H2 tags: You can have more than one H2 tag in your post. However don’t use your keyword for all H2 headings, instead use the keyword in 1-2 H2 tags and try to have LSI keywords other H2 heading. The post should look natural.

Use of H3 tags: The usage guidelines are same as mentioned above for H2 tags.

Use of H4, H5 and H6 tags: Rarely used. As far as I know no extra benefits of using keywords in such tags or headers.

That’s all I have for this topic “header tags seo”. Let me know if you have any doubt.