SEO Audit: The Importance of Checking for H1 Heading Tags

As more digital services have made it easier to edit websites, there is a greater need for anyone responsible for adding and/or editing website content to understand technical SEO. We recently worked with an online healthcare business that needed help diagnosing SEO issues. A full technical SEO audit revealed key insights, and one issue is both common and important to understand.

Although the technical SEO audit looked at several areas, both on-page and off-page, one of the major findings was that a significant number of pages did not use <h1> headings. According to W3Schools, the <h1> is an HTML heading that represents the main heading of your page; it is used by search engines and is the most important of the headings (HTML Headings, W3Schools). These headings should be visible to the user, and because of this, they are often the source of misconfiguration or omission.

It should be noted that there is a debate in the SEO community over the importance of H1 tags in search rankings. What influences our opinions on the importance of heading structure are: 1. During the indexing period, Google is trying to understand what the page is about (Indexing, Google LLC), and heading elements can provide important structure (HTML Headings, W3Schools), while creating an opportunity to help define what the page is about and who it's for. 2. Google changes its formula several times a year (Google Search's core updates and your website, Google LLC), meaning a statement from an authority figure from a few years ago or even recently may not be what many experts have and are seeing in practice. 3. Google can also use heading "elements, such as <h1>" to determine titles in the results page (Best practices for influencing title links, Google LLC), making one consider the current value placed on headers. 4. There are other search engines to consider. 5. Last, but possibly most importantly, for accessibility purposes and assistive technologies, proper heading structure is important for organization and navigation (Headings, World Wide Web Consortium).

To be clear, we are not trying to imply that because you have an <h1> and syntactically good structure on your website, you have optimized SEO. Consider two different headers: 1. No header. 2. Welcome. As far as SEO goes, we're uncertain if there would be a difference between the two. However, a well-thought-out header can highlight your target service and/or audience, provide structure, and provide critical information to search engines and end users.

Reliably Finding the H1 Tag

The best and most reliable way to see the <h1> on a webpage is to use developer tools on your laptop or desktop browser, and select the tab dedicated for elements. Because accessing developer tools may differ across devices and browsers, documentation for Safari, Edge, and Chrome is in the references section. To search for an <h1> tag, load the webpage you want to inspect and then navigate to the elements section of the developer tools. From the elements section, find the search bar (or CTRL + F for Windows) and type “<h1” without the double quotes. As shown in the photo, it’s important not to search for "<h1>" as there may be more content, and the search may not locate your main header. If you’re unable to locate an <h1>, it may be worthwhile to investigate further.

References

1. 1. W3Schools. HTML Headings.

   https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_headings.asp

2. 2. Google LLC. Indexing.

   https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/how-search-works#indexing

3. 3. Google LLC. Google Search's core updates and your website.

   https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-updates

4. 4. Google LLC. Best practices for influencing title links.

   https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link#page-titles

5. 5. World Wide Web Consortium. Headings.

   https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/page-structure/headings/

6. 6. Apple Inc. Web Inspector.

   https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-developer-tools/web-inspector

7. 7. Apple Inc. Elements Tab.

   https://webkit.org/web-inspector/elements-tab/

8. 8. Microsoft. Overview of DevTools.

   https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/devtools/overview

9. 9. Microsoft. Inspect, edit, and debug HTML and CSS with the Elements tool.

   https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/devtools/elements-tool/elements-tool

10. 10. Google LLC. Overview.

    https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/overview

11. 11. Google LLC. Elements panel overview.

    https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/elements