Chances are, you've come across the <h1> tag if you've ever dealt with web development content. It's a fundamental part of HTML, working alongside its companions — h2 through h6 — to bring structure to the text on a webpage. Simply put, these tags define different levels of sections; where h1 marks the top-level section, h2 signals a sub-section, h3 delves into a sub-subsection, and so on. The numbers in the tag names indicate their place in this hierarchy.
Imagine these headings as branches of a tree in the document, where the higher the number, the less important. The outline of the document is like a map of these branches, useful for making lists like a table of contents. If you want to make it easy for people to click and jump to different sections, you should connect each item in a list to the right heading.
It's important to have at least one really important heading with a level 1. Also, each heading in the list should be a little more or less important than the one before it. This keeps the document organized and easy to follow, like a clear path through the branches of a tree.
h1 Tag and SEO
Back in the early days of search marketing, there were two widely accepted rules that SEOs followed almost religiously: putting the title of your page in H1 tags and using only one H1 tag per page. It was like a mantra. People would scrutinize websites, pointing out, "Hey, CNN has an H2 as their main headline – that's not right!" However, as time went on, SEOs began to question these rules. The idea of having a single H1 tag was replaced with the notion of having "large text near the top of the page."
Google, being more sophisticated in understanding content, started to figure out the structure of pages even if they didn't strictly follow these rules. Google's John Muller addressed this in a Webmaster Hangout, stating that you can use H1 tags as much as you want on a page. He explained that having multiple H1 elements is normal, especially with HTML5.
"You can use H1 tags as often as you want on a page. There's no limit — neither upper nor lower bound.
H1 elements are a great way to give more structure to a page so that users and search engines can understand which parts of a page are kind of under different headings, so I would use them in the proper way on a page.
And especially with HTML5, having multiple H1 elements on a page is completely normal and kind of expected. So it's not something that you need to worry about. And some SEO tools flag this as an issue and say like 'oh you don't have any H1 tag' or 'you have two H1 tags.' From our point of view, that's not a critical issue. From a usability point of view, maybe it makes sense to improve that. So, it's not that I would completely ignore those suggestions, but I wouldn't see it as a critical issue.
Your site can do perfectly fine with no H1 tags or with five H1 tags."
93.5% of the results have a single H1 tag.
There is a small negative connection (−0.1172) between how well a webpage ranks and having just one H1 tag. This suggests that higher-ranking pages (like those in the top 10) tend to have a single H1 tag more often than lower-ranking ones (like those in the 31-40 range).
So, if more than 90% of top-ranking pages use H1 tags, it's a strong signal that any website serious about SEO should use them too. Even if they don't directly make your page rank higher, they're part of a bunch of good practices that successful sites usually follow.
12.5% of the results have more than one H1 tag.
You're more likely to find pages with multiple H1 tags as you go up in rankings. But, it's important to note that this doesn't automatically mean having lots of H1 tags is good for SEO. It's more like a pattern we noticed in the information.
In other words, just because higher-ranked pages often have multiple H1 tags doesn't necessarily mean that having more H1 tags is causing them to rank higher. It's just a trend we observed in the data.
Some thoughts from senior experts
“I would say this statement is incorrect "H1 tags are important for SEO because they help search engines and users understand what your page is about" - based on the fact that Google renders your page and can understand the text size used, as long as you have larger/more prominent text that serves the same purpose as a header tag for the user, it doesn't technically need to be a header tag. The same applies in reverse - if you use header tags and use CSS to style them to look like regular text, they aren't going to count.” (Mark Williams-Cook)
“I always advise my SEO copywriting clients to aim for an H1 tag or H1 heading of about 60 characters. This works best because search engines like Google will often not feature the SEO title you've created for your page. In the event that happens, search engines pull your H1 heading to feature instead. Keeping H1 tags closer to 60 characters improves the chances of that text not being cut off on SERPs.” (Brittany herzberg)
“H1 Tags or H1 Tag we need to discuss on this thing as well, that how many H1 Tags are necessary in article?
In Wordpress and News sites generally Headlines are the H1 Tag. H1 tag or Headline come in SERP, and to increase the CTR primary keywords should come little earlier in the Headline, so users can click on the results in Google. We have done carefully experiments many times and found that upto 55 characters is a good number of H1 Tag because when we try to limit h1 tag or headline under 55 characters then it goes to 60 characters. Sometimes some UPPERCASE words consumes more pixels then upperlower case, so with uppercase words 55 characters h1 tag takes space of 58 or 60 characters too.” (Sourabh Rana)
“When it comes down to the basics of H1 titles:
— Don't overthink things
— Always include your primary keyword
— Use some sort of "click-bait" adjectives
— Keep it short & sweet, yet descriptive” (Steven Schneider)
Conclusion
The value of header tags for SEO success is expected to continue to grow in 2023. This is because header tags can be used to create a hierarchy of content on a website, which helps search engine algorithms better understand the structure and content of a website. Additionally, header tags can be used to highlight important keywords and phrases, which can help improve the visibility of a website in SERPs.
Furthermore, header tags can help improve the user experience by providing a clear outline of the content of a website. This can help improve the click-through rate of a website, as users are more likely to click on a website if they know what to expect from it.
Sources:
https://moz.com/blog/h1-seo-experiment
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/h1-tag-seo-how-important/387306/
https://jemsu.com/the-evolution-of-header-tags-analyzing-their-impact-on-seo-in-2023/