H1 and H2 Tags - The Indispensible SEO Tool

With everyone having a different viewpoint regarding the various elements of a webpage or website in terms of SEO, it is no wonder then that H1 and H2 tags and their effectiveness is greatly debated. There are many who go by the dictum that they are dispensable elements without which one can easily achieve good SEO. But if you follow Google guidelines regarding the same, it advocates its use. So, it is but natural to pay heed to something that Google advocates. Service providers who provide Search Engine Optimization services also differ in their opinion about the H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 tags and pay varying degrees of attention to them.

In all, these header tags are something that are easily incorporated for SEO on page and do not require much effort. While they may help in achieving better search engine results, they do not harm the results in any way, making them an added advantage for Search Engine Optimization service providers to get more visibility. H1 and H2 tags, along with the other tags right till H6, all convey to the search engines the subject or topic of your website. The text that you put in these fields is more important than any other text and should be filled in with great care highlighting the most important information in H1 tag and gradually decreasing the specificity of the tag through to H6.

The most impactful SEO on page can be achieved by focusing on H1 and H2 tags as they are the most important. The degree of importance accorded to each tag decreases as the numbers grow. Place your most important keywords, in a grammatically correct format, in the H1 and H2 tags. But as with any other piece of text on a webpage, keyword stuffing can lead to penalisation here too. The font size of the header tags also decreases with the H1 being the largest and H6 as the smallest.

Most of the emphasis is given to the big elements for SEO but it is equally important to realise that the smaller elements together can make a big statement and should not be overlooked. They are not just headings but are vital clues and trails that the search engines can crawl through to index your site. Adequate utilisation of these tags can go a long way in working for the benefit of a website.