Is it possible to write the title of an article in the description? An effective SEO title (title tag) for quick promotion to the top: tips, recommendations, common mistakes. Using Headers H1-H6

On my top information projects, first a specialist in the topic draws up the structure of the article (headings and subheadings), and then the copywriters write the text based on them.

Structure is actually very important if you care about quality. And to create a normal structure, you need to understand how h tags work.

h1 is the main subheading in an article, usually placed above the text.

The first heading should be visually larger than the other headings on the page.

h2-h6 are small subheadings that are placed according to the nesting principle.

What are headers even for?

For those who are not very familiar with the topic, here is, in principle, a good video about the basics of composing subheadings h1-h6. If you don't consider yourself an expert, take a look:

And to consolidate the material, a little weaker video:

Headings are designed to highlight in one phrase or even a word the main essence, the idea of ​​the subsequent text. Usually a person turns his attention to them first, deciding whether to read the rest of the material. Headings are especially important in advertising texts and letters, and serve as the main tool for attracting the attention of the target audience.

In code the tag looks like this:

, where the letter h comes from the word “header”, which means “heading”. Each level is indicated by a corresponding number.

H-tags through people's eyes

Text divided into subheadings looks neater and is easier to read. The modern user has long learned to scan articles in just a few seconds and quickly draw conclusions about whether it is worth reading the entire text and whether it contains the useful information he is looking for. Headings catch the eye, highlighting the main thing and giving the user the opportunity to analyze the material.

Tags h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 allow you to create a kind of map for the reader, using which he can quickly navigate the text. And if these highlights manage to grab attention, then the person will linger on the page and will probably read the entire article. You can check the result using behavioral factors. If people stay on the page and take some actions, it means the SEO work was not done in vain.

H-tags through the eyes of search engines

Search robots collect information from them for semantic analysis. Heading levels h1, h2, h3 are of particular importance for bots. Their inconsistent or incorrect application can negatively affect the ranking of the page. If there are no h-tags in the HTML code at all, then the site will have difficulty promoting. Levels h4, h5, h6 are less significant.

Hierarchy of H-tags

The main rule in arranging headings is their hierarchy. It is not necessary that the tags follow each other in size, but it is unacceptable to use, for example, h3 in the text if you do not have the h2 meta anywhere, or use h6 without h5.

This is what the hierarchy looks like with the correct nesting:

What is an h1 tag?

The h1 tag is the table of contents of the text (like the title of a book or the headline of a newspaper article).

Each page should have one and only one h1 tag.

In terms of attractiveness for the user, it is of primary importance. But for SEO promotion, .

Title is also a title, but it is written not only for people, but also for robots. It is not displayed on the page itself, but only in the browser tab and in the snippet as an active link to the site. In fact, title is an alternative, but the main title for an HTML document. If it is missing, then the search engine takes h1 as a basis and uses it in the sickle.

Why should h1 be different from Title?

It is quite important to understand that h1 and Title are different headings. And accordingly, they must be skillfully combined. Here are the basics on this topic:

Neglecting the rules of uniqueness and relevance of headings may result in the site falling under the filter. Recently, search engines have begun to pay special attention to the quality of content and its SEO settings. Duplicates, overspam, chaotic placement of headings, and their inconsistency with the content are punishable.

Length requirements H1

It is recommended to make H1 more concise than Title, not exceeding the number of characters more than 50. But it will not be a disaster if the title turns out to be longer, when it is not possible to squeeze the whole essence into the indicated number.

Special plugins for WordPress allow you to analyze the correct filling of all metas directly in the editor.

Rules for writing h1 correctly

  • Must be unique for the entire site and absolutely readable;
  • Doesn’t repeat the title tag, but doesn’t contradict it either;
  • You shouldn’t make it too long (you can make the title longer);
  • Used only once per page;
  • Relevant to the text and reflects the semantic essence of the material;
  • Interesting and attractive to the user;
  • You cannot put a period at the end and it is recommended to use punctuation marks to a minimum.

Applying Keys

The main key phrases, first of all, should be contained in the title. But they should also be written in h1. In both cases it is better to do this at the very beginning. But it would be better if the keywords did not duplicate each other in these two tags. You need to use different word forms or diluted occurrences in h1 and direct occurrences in title.

Some take all the keys on the page and use them to create an article structure. Please note right away that without cool PFs, such a scattering of keys in subheadings will be punished by the filter for overspam.

Psychological Techniques for Writing an Attractive Headline

The title should be catchy. Here is a video from Maxim Ilyakhov, a specialist in the field of media, rector of the School of Editors and creator of the Glavred service:

Here are a couple more “tricks” that are used when writing headlines.

Solution

Remember that a person is always looking not for information or goods, but, first of all, for a solution to his problems, wants, needs. Address exactly the intended problem of the target audience

An example of a good headline: “Is your hair falling out? Stop your hair loss in a week."
An example of a bad headline: “Can hair loss be stopped?”

In the first case, we clearly identify the problem and offer a specific solution. In the second case, the problem is affected indirectly and the options for solving it are blurred.

Intrigue

An example of a good headline: “We reveal the secret of the most effective recipe for hair loss.”
An example of a bad headline: “The best recipe for hair loss.”

Reception "exam"

A sentence written in this form challenges the reader, inviting him to test himself.

An example of a good headline: “Are you sure you are fighting hair loss correctly?”
An example of a bad headline: “Do you know everything about hair loss.”

Of course, these are not all the methods that help influence a person’s perception and attract his interest. Read books on marketing to learn more if you are interested in this topic. By the way, the title can also be “tempting”. Moreover, most likely it is he who is highlighted in the search results. You can check its display after the page is indexed.

Why are subheadings h2-h6 needed?

Tags from h2 to h6 are located in the body of the article itself, structurally dividing it into thematic paragraphs, and in the code of the HTML document, highlighting its significant elements. They are also identified by search robots for semantic analysis of the page.

They are needed to hierarchically designate everything important and worth the user’s attention on the page. This structure helps a person quickly navigate the information and evaluate its compliance with their needs.

h2 – focuses the attention of users and search engines on the main content of the article. Shows the most significant things in the text.

h3 is a subparagraph for information going under H2, revealing it even deeper.

h4, h5, h6 – are defined as nested subheadings (reveal in detail the essence of H2 or H3) and are used in the text, as highlighting small points and significant words, as well as in the menu, sidebar and other components of the web document.

All h-tags must be within 50 characters in length.

How to correctly write subheadings h2-h6

  • It is impossible for the smallest subheading to be present without a larger one. That is, if the text contains an h4 meta tag, then it must be preceded by h2 and h3.
  • The higher the level of the heading, the larger the font should be. In WordPress, the default settings are usually set so that tags are automatically formatted correctly.
  • All h-tags must correspond to the content of the content and reflect the essence of the information.
  • It is unacceptable to use h1-h6 as anchors or active links.
  • You cannot write other tags inside the h tag.
  • Only text and punctuation are allowed in h-tags.
  • Subheadings should not contain keyword spam. It is best to use keywords in title, h1, h2, and in smaller ones, such as h3, h5, h6, focus on a detailed discussion of the topic.

If the page layout contains the title and main heading H1, but the text of the article itself is not too large and does not contain subheadings, this is not an error. There are quite a few pages in the TOP where the content is almost a continuous strip, perhaps divided into paragraphs. You can get into a leading position without “witchcraft” over text markup, placing more emphasis on. WordPress sites are easily indexed by search engines. But still, the use of these tags not only makes the task easier, but also makes the content easier and more pleasant for visual perception.

How to fill h-tags in WordPress

h1 is usually filled in the field above the text in the post:

To make subheadings h2-h6, you need to select the required element and, hovering the cursor over the “headings” tab, select the one you need by clicking on it. Do the same for each of the subheadings, including them in the desired format.

There is an even simpler way - you can type the text in Word using the necessary markups and simply copy-paste the article into the WordPress editor. Headings selected in Word will automatically appear in the required sizes. If necessary, you can correct them using the WordPress CMS editor tools.

If I could only leave one aspect of SEO, I would leave Page Title without a single grain of doubt. Why? Let me tell you. http://vian34.ru

First, let me explain what SEO page titles are. Headers are informational text displayed as the page title in the browser (not in the content).

Many people confuse the title of the article (content) and the title of the page, since in most cases they are identical. But not always. Let's get straight to the tips.

By design, most content management systems like WordPress use the same content and page titles (they are generated automatically). But there are several ways to add variety to page titles and articles. In WordPress you can do this using special plugins. Other CMSs may use custom code that will allow you to use different headers. Ideally, page titles are intended for search engines, since this is the text that the user sees in the search engine results after entering a query. The idea is to keep the page title and content title different.

If you divide the page title into two equal parts, the first part should contain the most important information for search engines. Technically, this means putting your main keywords here. For example, “Red apples: why we should buy them” is much more effective than “Why we should buy red apples.”

I'm sure at least once in your life you've come across headlines like "Red Apples, Brown Apples, Yellow Apples, Sweet Apples." Many people make this mistake - they shove all kinds of keywords into one title. Since a user who comes across a similar title in a search engine’s results is likely to get confused rather than begin to trust the resource. Imagine that a user searched for “yellow apples” and there were two results. One of them will have the above headline, and the second will have a headline like “Yellow Apples: Are They Really Better Than Red Apples?” Of course, the user will trust the second option more, since the first one looks more like spam.

Symbols like &, $, | and so on. Some of them will display correctly (like "|"), but the problem is that not all of them will display in all browsers. Avoid using them as they are a waste of space and can sometimes make the title look confusing or broken.

No more! Don't stretch the title beyond the limit. This can simply scare away visitors. Google, for example, will truncate titles longer than 65 characters (spaces also count). Much like you try to fit a thought into 140 characters, try to fit a page title into 65.

The importance of the title tag for SEO is difficult to overestimate, because it has always been a very significant document ranking factor. In our practice, there were many cases when changing the title tag to a more appropriate one from an SEO point of view led to significant changes in the positions of the document: documents from the TOP 30 moved to the TOP 10 in 7-10 positions and then were brought to the TOP 1-3 by further adding text text and reference factors.

Documents for which SEO title optimization was not carried out, but at the same time the text factors were improved and the link profile was “pumped up” to the TOP, were either much slower or refused to move at all and remained stuck in their current positions for months.

We observed a similar picture among many colleagues: webmasters and SEO optimizers, which gives us the opportunity to confidently speak about the importance of a well-optimized title tag for SEO tasks.

However, search engines do not stand still and are gradually improving their algorithms. Thus, at the beginning of 2016, Yandex introduced the Palekh algorithm, which uses a neural network to assess the relevance of a document to a request. On March 23, 2017, Yandex switched to the “Baden-Baden” algorithm, the task of which is to pessimize (impose sanctions) on over-optimized documents - documents that contain text SEO spam.

We can clearly observe the trend and direction of development of search engines. Here's what Yandex itself says about this.

For example, it is obvious that the title contains incomplete information about the document, and it would be good to learn how to build a model using the full text (as it turned out, this is not a completely trivial task). We see our long-term goal as creating models that can “understand” the semantic correspondence between queries and documents at a level comparable to that of a human. There will be many difficulties on the way to this goal - the more interesting it will be to go through it.

Thus, Yandex is clearly signaling that the importance of the title tag as a document ranking factor will decrease as the overall ranking model improves.

But this is in the long term. How are things going now? Does a well-written SEO page title affect how quickly a document gets to the TOP? Let's figure it out.

What is a title tag?

Translated from English title - title, title, name. In the Internet sphere, the most popular meaning is the title. A synonym can be SEO title.

Almost every one of us has at least once searched for some information on the Internet and in the search results we see certain phrases by which we determine whether we should go to this page or whether it does not correspond to our request.

The search engine uses the contents of the title tag of the document in its results.

For example:

Photo 1: The search engine shows the title tag of the document (or part of it) in the search results and highlights in bold words that, in its opinion, have a similar semantic meaning.

The search engine regards the title tag as a unique, semantic description of a specific document on the site. Using this tag, she understands what is on the page and evaluates the main meaning and focus of the document.

It is necessary to take into account that we deliberately do not take into account textual factors, which in fact also influence the correct classification of a document by a search engine. For simplicity, we only look at the SEO impact of the title tag.

Let's say we want to add a product to our online store. We created a page for it, uploaded photos, added descriptions, etc. and so on. How will the search engine understand that this particular page on our website is dedicated, for example, to the R2D2 bread maker? It is thanks to the title tag, which will reflect the semantic, semantic orientation of the document.

In this case, you can write “The best bread maker in the world!” As a result, the search engine will not display a document with such a title for the query “R2D2 bread maker” (without taking into account textual relevance) and will be right, because who knows which bread maker is the best for us.

Do not confuse the title and headings H1, H2, etc. Headings H1, H2, H3, etc. relate to the layout and structure of the document itself. Search engines do not consider the content of H1, H2, etc. headings. as something meaningful for ranking.

The title tag does not appear on the document page, unlike H1. You can only see it in a browser tab.

Photo 2: In the Google Chrome browser, you can see the contents of the title tag when you hover your mouse over the tab in which the document is open.

Search engines in most cases use the contents of the title tag when forming the title of the document for search results. This is used by both Yandex and Google. Therefore, you should approach title writing responsibly.

In some cases, the search engine may replace the title of the document with a more suitable fragment in the search results. Usually one of the headings (H1, H2) or a phrase from the text is taken. This is done to increase the click-through rate (CTR) of the document, which is rated by the search engine as the most competent.

So, the main functions of the title tag:

  1. Is the title of the page in the browser;
  2. Determines the semantic and semantic orientation of the document for the user in the search results window;
  3. Used by search engines to assess the semantic focus of a document.
  1. It is necessary to accurately reflect the meaning of the document. This is done through the use of keywords. We will consider the detailed algorithm below.
  2. Brevity is the soul of wit. You should not write titles longer than 80 characters, as the search engine will cut them to the required format. Google - 70 characters, Yandex - 80 characters. These figures were obtained empirically and accepted as “standard”. But it is worth noting that the search engines are able to “select” the desired part of the title and show it in the search results. However, this does not look entirely successful and does not always work.
  3. You should not use special characters unless it is necessary (for example, part of a brand name).
  4. Titles cannot be duplicated. As already mentioned, the title is the essence of the page. If we can write the same title for two pages, then the pages are identical, we need to leave the most important one and delete the second one. Otherwise, there are risks of “cannibalization”.
  5. If our title does not fit into the 80-character format, we put the main keywords at the beginning of the title, if this does not contradict the rules of the Russian language. This will help us show the meaning of the article to the user, even if the search engine cuts off the title.
  6. You should not use repetition of words. Nobody needs spam. If we wrote “crystal chandelier”, we should not describe all its advantages as separate phrases: “crystal chandelier, cheap chandelier, beautiful chandelier”, then it is easier to write: “beautiful and cheap crystal chandelier”.

In general, these rules can help you correctly compose an SEO title for any document. Speaking of practice, we can use an algorithm that will allow us to fit all these rules into one workflow, which will be a template for all the titles that we have to write.

Algorithm for writing any title

Let's look at everything using a specific example. Let's say the topic of our site is a women's magazine. We have the following grouped key phrases for article writing.


Photo 3: An example of a semantic cluster (group) for an article about the psychology of relationships between men and women.

Phrases in this group are sorted by .

An example of what an algorithm for writing a title for any article might look like:

  1. We enter the most common phrase of the group into the title.
  2. We correct it if there is a violation of the norms of the Russian language or the order of words is broken, or a colon or comma is missing. An example of an incorrect phrase: “it’s psychology to make a man run after you.”
  3. We look at phrases of lower frequency and correct / supplement the original one with various variations, if they are appropriate.
  4. We are studying whether an addition to any word in Latin is necessary. If necessary, we enter it in brackets for this word. And the opposite option, if the frequency phrase contains a Latin alphabet, we look to see if we need to add the name in Russian.
  5. We study whether there are any synonyms or scientific names that can explain to the user the meaning of the words from the phrase.

Let us provide comments on the algorithm and consider the nuances of each step.

The most frequent phrase of the group in the long term gives us good support in order to move to the TOP. However, there are some nuances here:

Let's look at the difference in frequencies between the first and second phrases. If it is small, and subsequent phrases have a wording similar to the 2nd or 3rd phrase, then it is better to use the 2nd or 3rd phrase. Let's say the group looked like this:

Photo 4: A group of keys in which there are two very similar queries with approximately equal frequency.

In this case, the wording “force” is clearly inferior to the wording “do”, so we use the second phrase of the group.

You need to pay attention to the meaningful words in all phrases. In this example, the use of the words “man” or “guy” may be questionable. It is not clear which word should be used. The situation can be resolved quite simply - go to the search results and check the first phrase, first with the request man, then with the request guy and look at the TOP. Our goal is to determine whether Yandex considers the words “man” and “guy” synonymous and whether it will highlight “guy” in bold when we type in man and “man” when we type in guy.

For the query “man”:

Photo 5: Yandex highlights the word “boyfriend” in bold if the word “man” is present in the query, considering it an equivalent synonym.

Yandex accepts the word “guy” as a synonym and highlights it.

Search for “boyfriend”

Photo 6: The opposite is not true. For a query that contains the word "guy", "man" is not a synonym.

And in this case, Yandex does not consider these to be synonymous and does not highlight “man” in bold.

From this we can conclude that we should use the word “man”, as this will kill two birds with one stone. If we use “guy”, we will get less traffic, but perhaps the competition for this phrase will be lower and it will be easier to reach the TOP.

We pay attention to the competitiveness of the phrase. Yes, the most frequent phrase is good, but if the difference between it and the second phrase is not great, and the competitiveness of the first is 25, and the second is 12 (according to Mutagen), then it is better to choose the second phrase. Again, adjusting it, taking into account the entire group of requests and formulations.

Correcting incorrect word order is mandatory. It’s trite, it hurts the eyes if the search results include the phrase “how to wash clothes?” (Master Yoda would be jealous). Moreover, search engines adhere to the rule: rearranging the terms does not change the sum. Of course, this is relevant if the rearrangement does not change the meaning of the phrase. Regarding the comma and colon, in most cases they need to be “returned” after collecting phrases in Key Collector. Since we are, they are not in the most popular phrases. In our example, a colon is asked before the word “psychology” - “How to make a man run after you: psychology.”

The addition of variations comes in several forms. Firstly, it often happens that the most frequent phrase in a group is a marker phrase that does not carry a specific meaning. In this case, we must describe what exactly is on the page: this is a description of the product or its review along with a comparison, or instructions for making it yourself. For example, we have the marker phrase “slate”. What is meant is unclear. Therefore, it is necessary to add phrases from the group, if this is a business, then “Buy slate at low prices,” if it is an informative article, then “How to put slate on a roof.”

Such additions increase the CTR (click-through rate) of a document in search results and ultimately affect the ranking of the document (in the long run). The logic is simple - if, according to the search engine, a document is clicked on, it means the user is interested and sees in it something valuable for himself. This means that such a document needs to be promoted and its position in the search results increased.

Secondly, the addition of variations is relevant when there is some kind of division by gender, or when you really want to use more wording from the group.

An example would be the article “Names and nicknames for cats and kittens.” If the most common phrase is “names and nicknames for cats”, and there is no point in writing two different articles separately about cats and cats, then the option of combining and adding the variation “...and cats” will be just right. Such a simple trick will allow us to smooth out the imperfections of the search engine, which does not understand that “cats and cats” have identical meaning within the framework of our article, stimulate it and thereby improve ranking.

Thirdly, when one phrase is a continuation of another. For example, the phrases in the TOP by frequency are “how to grow an apple tree” and “how to grow an apple tree correctly.” We can “close” both phrases at once and increase the click-through rate if we use this option: “How to grow an apple tree correctly? 10 secrets of gardeners!

  1. Latin and English names can be added if they are in the group of phrases and this does not contradict the brand. Let's say we have an online store of chocolate and sweets. We are preparing an article about the Snickers bar. In the title of the article we can indicate “The history of the Snickers bar.” This option is suitable when the group has requests with both names in Latin and Russian. It is not always necessary to add a name in Latin, since sometimes the transliteration of the search engine itself determines the form of the word in Latin. For example, Yandex will understand the Snickers bar in any version and will highlight in bold both the English and Russian spelling of the name.
  2. Words of synonyms or scientific names help to block several requests from a group at once, without being mistaken for spam, but on the contrary, helping the user. For example, the article “How to grow a money tree?” If we are competent, then we have found such semantic phrases as “crassula money tree growing.” That is, the Crassula is the money tree. In this case, you can add to the title “How to grow a money tree (crassula)?”. This addition is especially relevant in the scientific field, where some users may call an object by a common name, and some by a more scientific name.

This type of title writing is rather “dry” and focused exclusively on the user. Most likely, it will not be suitable for bloggers and other creative people who have their own writing style and perhaps want to grab the user's attention instantly. However, any title should reflect the essence of the text that is behind it.

"Ladder" technique

There is a technique that allows you to quickly promote new (and in some rare cases old) documents to the TOP with almost 100% probability by manipulating the title tag. It consists of the following:

  1. We initially select an SEO title for a document, focusing on less frequent phrases from the group. Depending on the size of the group (number of phrases in the group), you can use phrases in 4-5 place in frequency for small groups and 6-9 for large ones.
  2. Additionally, you can check the phrases in the Mutagen service to see the approximate competition for them and build on the competitiveness index that the service provides.
  3. Using less competitive phrases, we form the title for the document.
  4. We are waiting for the document to reach the TOP. Usually this takes two weeks.
  5. We select a more competitive phrase from the group, create a new SEO title and write it into the document.
  6. We repeat until we have a variation in the title based on the highest frequency phrase from the group.

The disadvantages of this method include its labor intensity and complexity when working with 100 or more documents on the site. We need to track every document and know when and where to change which titles. Therefore, this method is suitable for the most valuable, traffic-carrying documents, which we will focus on in our overall website promotion strategy.

Common SEO Heading Mistakes

When composing a page title, various mistakes are often made, which mainly violate the above rules. Improper composition of the title can result in the document remaining behind the TOP 30, no matter how ideal the content is.

Let's look at the main errors and how to eliminate them.

  1. The biggest mistake can be the lack of a title tag. This error is typical, perhaps for inexperienced users, but it does happen. Always indicate the title when publishing a document in the CMS.
  2. Trying to fit too many words into a title. You should not try to capture the entire list of keys that characterize the page and document. As a rule, if the group is composed correctly, then the first phrase already reflects the entire meaning. The desire to insert more synonymous words is also a bad habit. Choose the most common or less competitive wording and use it. Leave the rest to text.
  3. The title does not match the content of the page. You should not write the title “How to clean a carpet with your own hands” if the document provides an overview of carpets and their coverings. A competent title reveals the essence of the document even before reading it, and the user should receive an answer to the question that worries him. Inconsistency will have a bad impact on behavioral factors and will lead to a large number of failures. This error once again reflects the importance of the semantic core - if we think that a user on the request “guitar tuner” wants to see an overview of tuners, then practice shows otherwise - more often the preference goes to online tuners and similar services. Understanding what the user wants from the construction and semantics of a phrase comes only with experience and a thorough analysis of queries and search results.

Results and conclusions

The title tag is an important component of any website document. It includes semantic meaning for the user and reflects the essence of the article/section/card/listing and other things. At the same time, this tag allows search engines to intelligently analyze the correspondence of the content to the title and provide the user with only the necessary content. We hope that the recommendations and analysis of errors will help in creating competent and concise SEO titles.

How to use it correctly headers H1-H3 on-page from an SEO perspective? There are a number of rules regarding the hierarchy and content of headings H1-H6, the observance of which has a positive effect on the promotion of the site.

To predict how search engines will evaluate the use of headings on a page, you need to clearly understand what they serve. Users find it more convenient and easier to perceive well-structured content. The text should be divided into logical blocks and equipped with pictures, where necessary - lists and tables.

Headings are used for such blocks, which in turn consist of paragraphs. You need to try to ensure that each paragraph is a logically complete thought. Let's look at the diagram that best demonstrates the correct hierarchy of H1-H3 headings on a page:

The H1 tag should only be used once on a page. The remaining headings should reflect the logical hierarchy of the page. H2 headings will be H1 subheadings, and H3 headings will be H2 subheadings.

As for the H4-H6 headings, they can be used for blocks with non-core, additional information on the page. Or you may not use them at all. The content of lower-level headings clearly has a lesser effect on the relevance of the page in the eyes of search engines.

The following diagram demonstrates the violation of hierarchical nesting of headers:

In general, HTML documents should not only have a logically structured structure, but also have semantic markup. This means using tags for their intended purpose. You shouldn't use them to decorate the page. The logical structure and markup allow search engines to easily identify the semantic parts of the page, and it ranks better.

Tags H1-H6 from an SEO point of view

If HTML standards allow some liberties regarding the use of tags, then from an SEO point of view this is unacceptable. Tags H1-H6 should not contain other tags, such as B, Strong and others. Some time ago, a Panda filter was applied to my site, the main reason for which, in my opinion, was non-compliance with this rule.

From an SEO perspective, H1-H6 tags should not have CSS classes. Search engines perceive the class in H1-H6 tags as an attempt at manipulation. This means that you reduce the font size of headings and use them not for their intended purpose, but to increase the relevance of the page. The solution is this: use CSS, but without classes.

As for the universal id attribute, in HTML5 it is used as an anchor. If the identifier is the only one not only on the page, but on the entire site, then apparently the attitude towards it will be more loyal.

Links inside headings are also not allowed. The HTML5 specification allows for the opposite situation: you can place an entire block in the A tag, consisting of any elements except the A tag itself: heading, paragraph, image, Span line elements. Perhaps in this case, this is also acceptable.

Keywords in tags H1-H6

Now about the presence of keywords in H1-H6 tags. Of course, they must be present in the headlines. A general rule must be followed for all keys on the page. The closer they are to its beginning, and to the beginning of the element containing them, the higher their weight will be.

Pay attention to the gradient background of the illustrations for this article - it reflects the importance of the keys on the page. Where the color is darker, the weight of the keys will be higher.

Let's look again at the document hierarchy. More important key phrases should be in H1, and less important ones should be arranged in descending order: in H2, H3. But what about the Title tag? It's best not to make the Title and H1 tags identical, but it's a good idea to have the main keyword phrase in both.

Some of the words from the Title that are not included in the H1 can be “split” into other headings. They may also repeat some words from the main key phrase. You will get “diluted” keys that will drive traffic for low-frequency queries. But do not overuse such repetitions, no more than 2-3 per page, otherwise you will run into sanctions for over-optimization.

Now about typical mistakes, and let’s summarize. Do not list keys in headings separated by commas, use punctuation to a minimum. Don't focus on high-frequency keys alone. The best would be a short title that reflects a logically expressed idea.

Do not forget about the uniqueness of headings on the scale of your site, or better yet, the entire Web, although this is difficult to achieve. A mistake would be their excessive use, when under the heading there will be one “thin” paragraph, and then the heading will follow again.

Read more about the whole range of SEO promotion measures, which provides instructions for optimizing the site and improving external and behavioral factors. Let’s briefly recall the basic rules for using H1-H6 tags on a page:

  1. Correct hierarchy.
  2. There are no other tags or links inside.
  3. No classes.
  4. Availability of keywords. Correspondence of their degree of importance to the rank of the title.

Some webmasters use ready-made website templates, where the H1 tag is a logo that is the same for the entire site. Are you that kind of webmaster? I hasten to please you, you don’t need to change anything! In this case, search engines consider the H2 tag to be the main tag in the page hierarchy. Just keep in mind that your heading hierarchy has been shifted one notch.