h1 tag

H1 Tag Not Critical For Search Ranking Says Google

What is H1 Header Tag?

The H1 Header tag is nothing but the title of an article or a blog post. A block of text is wrapped inside the <h1></h1> tag to implement it on a page. As the best practice, H1 tag is used once in an article. Apart from H1, there are other headers tags like h2, h3, h4, etc can be used. H1 is considered the most prominent Header.

Its use started in the 1990s when web pages were introduced. Ever since SEO industry has believed that H1 tag effectively improves the ranking of a website. But on October 3, Webmaster Trend Analysts John Muller had to share something interesting about H1 tags and the associated myths.

What is the myth?

The myth is H1 tag is used to improve the ranking of a website.  John Muller said that the expectation of getting ranked due to the usage of H1 tag may be wrong. He said while it was fine to use this tag on a website, but the purpose is different and this is what was cleared by Google.

What Google said?

Google said that use as many header tags you want or use none but Google’s algorithms will not take it as a command for ranking purposes. However, for better user experience using H1 tag is a good option.

In the nutshell, Google doesn’t need an indication like header to understand the content; its algorithms are smart enough to crack that. Even if you don’t mention header tag its totally fine.

How heading should be used?

Communication is the key.  Structured content makes the page user-friendly. It makes it easy to deliver the idea. Using too many headers or not using any can cause a text harder to read. The appropriate number of headings segregates the content into informative pieces.

It also proves helpful for screen readers. The presence of heading markup allows assistive technologies to help screen readers. It is an effective way to help screen readers to navigate and find the content of interest.

Why you should still use H1 tag?

Google is smart enough to figure out the content with or without header tags. Google can figure out what is important in the content, highlighting nothing or everything matter least. SEO should not be your primary purpose, the point here is the accessibility of your content for the user. Take the help of H1 tag or other standard HTML tags for creating a better user experience.

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