Heading guidelines for SEO

Article
10/10/2017

The heading (<h1> through <h6>) tags for each page should follow these guidelines for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Explanation

In semantic web design, headings provide important organizational and summary information. Each page should have a single <h1> tag that summarizes the contents of the page. If the page contains a significant amount of text, it should be organized with <h2> through <h6> subheadings that summarize and categorize the text that they precede. Search engines rely on correctly used headings to determine the organization and contents of a site.

Guidelines

Review the content of the heading tags (<h1> through <h6>) for each page in the site to make sure that they contain text that is relevant to the page content.

Check each heading for the following:

Each page should contain a single <h1> tag.

For more information, see WEB1005 - This page contains no <h1> tag and WEB1004 - The <h1> tag should be declared only once in a page.
Each heading tag (<h1> through <h6>) should be a descendent of the <body> tag.

For more information, see WEB1008 - The <h1> is not inside the <body> tag section.
Each heading should contain text.

For more information, see WEB1007 - The <h1> tag contents are too short.

Heading guidelines for SEO

Explanation

Guidelines

See also

Concepts

Additional resources