h1 and h2 tag confusion: please help

**e-tailwebstores** · 04-09-08

Looking for some help from some seo experts!

What is the best way to add h1 and h2 tags to my site and where? Does size, font, colour, position, or any other factors matter.

I am a little confused.

I think h1 tag at the top of the content, in bold and slightly bigger than the rest of the text. While h2 I dont really pay much attention to.

Please give me your opinions.

**Brett** · 04-09-08

Originally Posted by Boredofthehighstreet

Looking for some help from some seo experts!

What is the best way to add h1 and h2 tags to my site and where? Does size, font, colour, position, or any other factors matter.

I am a little confused.

I think h1 tag at the top of the content, in bold and slightly bigger than the rest of the text. While h2 I dont really pay much attention to.

Please give me your opinions.

Depends what you're using them for - for SEO purposes <h1> is more important than <h2> and <h2> is more important than <h3> - i.e. google will add more weight to the content within the <h1> tag than the <h2>

size, color etc can be controlled by CSS and google won't know anything about it so you could have your H1 tags exactly the same size and color as ordinary text but that means your users wouldn't realise it was a heading and therefore not realise the importance.

Depends what you're trying to do with them really.
Brett

**gimme4free** · 04-09-08

It is always worth having H2 & H3 tags as well as H1 but H1 is far more important. Also remember to have keywords in the page title, no stop words (and, to, the etc) and bold your keywords a few times in the body and headers

**NeilBd** · 05-09-08

Originally Posted by Brett

Depends what you're using them for - for SEO purposes <h1> is more important than <h2> and <h2> is more important than <h3> - i.e. google will add more weight to the content within the <h1> tag than the <h2>

size, color etc can be controlled by CSS and google won't know anything about it so you could have your H1 tags exactly the same size and color as ordinary text but that means your users wouldn't realise it was a heading and therefore not realise the importance.

Depends what you're trying to do with them really.
Brett

Thanks for this. I have a similar query - e.g. Can I use CSS to place my h1 tags at the bottom of my page whilst being at the top of my code? I'm a newbie learning about CSS - I want to do white-hat SEO and don't want to incur the wrath of the big G!

Advice would be very welcome.

**EmmaFlower** · 08-09-08

wow I didn't realise that the h tags were more important than p text. So from this should I assume that more headers are good for your sites seo?

Emma

**fizzbird** · 08-09-08

Originally Posted by EmmaFlower

wow I didn't realise that the h tags were more important than p text. So from this should I assume that more headers are good for your sites seo?

Emma

Hi
You should have a H1 heading on each page describing what the page is about in a few words
Then H2 headings for sections within the page
H3 for sub headings and so on.

Don't overdo it though

**EmmaFlower** · 08-09-08

Hi Fizz

thata fab thanks :tup

Emma

**NeilBd** · 10-09-08

Originally Posted by fizzbird

Hi
You should have a H1 heading on each page describing what the page is about in a few words
Then H2 headings for sections within the page
H3 for sub headings and so on.

Don't overdo it though

Thanks Fizz

Is it okay to place a h1 in a div at the bottom of the page?

**fizzbird** · 10-09-08

Originally Posted by NeilBd

Thanks Fizz

Is it okay to place a h1 in a div at the bottom of the page?

Sorry I'm not sufficiently qualified to answer that, so I wouldn't like to say. I would guess that it's OK as long as you don't have a main heading elsewhere and are just doing it for appearances rather than trying to manipulate anything?

Get some more opinions first though

**Darren M** · 10-09-08

Originally Posted by NeilBd

Thanks for this. I have a similar query - e.g. Can I use CSS to place my h1 tags at the bottom of my page whilst being at the top of my code? I'm a newbie learning about CSS - I want to do white-hat SEO and don't want to incur the wrath of the big G!

Advice would be very welcome.

The more you deviate from what a regular HTML page should look like the higher your risk becomes. It may work today, but if Google change things in the future it could hit your rankings hard. Personally I wouldn't use CSS in this way, just my opinion.

**pete_coles** · 10-09-08

Originally Posted by NeilBd

Is it okay to place a h1 in a div at the bottom of the page?

If you want it physically at the bottom of the page (ie in rendered view but not the html) then you can absolutely position it via css.

If you want it positioned in the html at the bottom you might be better of using a lower ranking header tag such as h4. I'm not an SEO expert but it is always a good idea to keep your page semantically correct.