What is the role of H1 headings for SEO?

Creating a great website that reflects your company branding, and increases sales, bookings and sign ups, is an essential consideration for many companies and businesses. And to achieve this, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will be essential. As part of this, the H1 headings can be very important. Here at Pumpkin Web Design, we are Preston’s leading web design and content marketing professionals. We provide valuable web design, SEO, and marketing solutions to a range of clients, across the North West, including Southport and Wigan, as well as Manchester. And this is our guide to everything you should know about why H1 headings are crucial for SEO.

So, what is the role of H1 headings for SEO??

H1 heading tags have long been considered an important part of effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and is known as being one of the earliest ranking factors for Google. This was outlined in a 1998 research paper outlining the search algorithm and identified that some website elements were ranking factors, including the heading. Since then, the Google search algorithm has changed and evolved over the years, and while the role of the H1 tag has changed slightly, it is still very important for a number of different reasons. These include:

• Understanding the content- the H1 content is crucial for understanding the content on the page. This indicates to the algorithm the specific subject of the page content, which is a very useful tool for helping to categorize the content. This categorization is essential for effectively delivering the right content as an answer to a search query, on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). While the Google algorithm does take into account the content itself, and a range of other details, a clear and relevant heading will always be useful and effective. In terms of voice search, and the increase in long questions being asked to Google, using a heading that is a question can be a useful indicator that your content will have the answer. However, the heading itself will not be used as a ranking factor, it’s more of a guide for the search engine algorithm.
• Understanding the website images- the H1 tag is often used by the Google algorithm to understand he content of any images on the page, and how these in particular relate to the content. This is even more important if the Alt tag for the image is not completed.
• Structuring the page- In addition, the H1 tag is seen as the most important piece of text content on a page. And other heading tags can also be used to give structure to the content of the page, and help to identify which areas of the page contain which details. This is useful for featured snippets, where the answer to a question might be pulled straight from the web page itself.

For help or advice with any of these aspects of web marketing and SEO, why not ask the professionals today, here at Pumpkin Web Design?