The secrets of Google unraveled! Headers

Headers, eye-catchers and structure reinforcers

The headers on your webpage make up the titles and subtitles above text paragraphs. They are located between header tags (<h1>…</h1>, <h2>…</h2>, …, <h6>…</h6>) and form a hierarchy: the header between <h1> tags is the most important. Preferably there is only one <h1> header per web page. Sub-headers – for underlying paragraphs – are placed between <h2> to <h6> tags, in descending level of importance.

Respect the hierarchy of header tags; f.i. do not jump from an <h2> tag to an <h4> tag and skip the <h3> header. The higher a header number, the less important Google considers the information to be. But there is no need to use all header tags up to <h6>.

Use the most important keywords in your headers. Otherwise Google might consider your webpage to be spam. Use a good mix of the most important keywords and words that are related to those keywords. Google assesses whether your web page has a clear structure through both headers and content. A good score is directly linked to a strong structure and a high relevance, because of the use of keywords in the text.

Human visitors rarely read all text on your webpage. They scan: they read the title, the first paragraph and the subtitles, quickly glance at the images, scroll a little and, if you’re lucky, make it to the last sentence. So put all vital information in the first paragraph and preferably assessing it an <h1> header. The subtitles above paragraphs are the other headers: briefly summarise the content of the paragraph, preferably as a call-to-action. Use keywords to point out to visitors that the content is relevant to their search.

How does your website perform in regard of all parameters considered important by Google?

Try SEO Page Optimizer for free to get an answer to this question. You can carry out a free analysis for one keyword, for one web page – each day. That way you discover immediately where your website stands in terms of the amount of words, keywords and related words used in the headers of the highest ranking websites.
Bonus: you can also see scores for other content-related components.

Next blog post: the body text, the actual content of the web page