H1 Tags

What are H1 tags?

An H1 tag is an HTML element that is used to indicate the title or primary topic of a webpage. H1 text is used to create the most visually prominent header on your page, as well as indicate the main topic of your page to search engines. In HTML code, H1 tags appear within brackets:

<h1>Main page header goes here</h1>

H1 tags are an important part of on-page SEO. Below we will dive deeper into H1 tags, why they are important, and review a few examples.

Why are H1 tags important?

An H1 tag is an important signal that lets search engines know what your page is about. Google, Bing and other search engines will strongly consider the text within your H1 when deciding where to rank your page in its search results for a given keyword.

In addition to being a signal for search engines, properly used H1 tags can improve your user experience. When you are designing your page, the H1 tag should be the first headline that a user sees when the content loads. It indicates what your page is about, and that they should continue reading your content after clicking on it from a search engine or other traffic source. H1 tags should instantly let your readers or potential customers say to themselves, “yes, I’ve found the page I’m looking for”.

Header tags are also a way to organize the content of your page into an easy-to-consume hierarchy. There are six available HTML header tags that can be used, from <h1> to <h6>. When designing your site, H1 tags should be the most visually prominent on the page. H2 tags should be a bit smaller than H1s, H3 tags should be a bit smaller than H2s, and so on.

H1 vs H2 Tags

Generally speaking, you should only use one H1 tag per page. You can and should use multiple H2 tags to divide your content into sections that are easy for users to skim. H2 tags are a great place to include mentions of your primary keyword, in addition to related terms generated from a keyword suggestion tool. You can also get ideas for your H2 tags by reviewing the People Also Ask box within search results. Google sources this data from questions people are asking that are related to the keyword you've entered. This offers insight into the questions Google is aiming to answer for its users. Providing answers to these questions in your content is a good way to not only increase your chances of placement in People Also Ask, but also make your page more enriching and tailored to potential readers.

H1 Tag Examples

On the page that you are currently reading, the text “H1 Tags” is our H1. It is the highest-level way to classify what this page is about, so it is assigned as an H1 tag in the HTML of this page. As we get into more specific topics and questions regarding H1 tags, we use H2 to classify sub-sections of the page.

In this example from Nordstrom, ‘Women’s’ Shoes’ is used as the H1. When it comes to header tags, it is best to keep it simple and to the point. In this case, even though the text is not particularly large, it is still clearly visible without distracting users from the content on the page:

On a blog post or long-form article, your post title is generally the best choice for your H1 tag. In this example blog post from The New York Times, the blog post title serves as an eye-catching header for the page.

Note that the size, font, and other design elements of an H1 tag can be specified in your CSS stylesheets. In the following example, the H1 element is given a ‘class’ attribute that specifies which CSS style should be applied to this particular text.

<h1 class="_4731d6ac" data-scp="title hidden">The Best Hiking Boots</h1>

H1 Tag Best Practices

Many web designers or website owners who are new to search engine optimization will use HTML headers only as a design element, without consideration for the SEO impact of their use. H1s should be used as a way to optimize your page for your target keyword, not simply as a styling choice. Using a keyword tool such as Moz's Keyword Explorer will allow you to determine the best H1 tag for your page.

Can a page have multiple H1 tags?

Generally, every web page should only have one H1 tag, though under some circumstances where a page truly covers multiple high-level topics, multiple H1s can be used. According to Google's John Mueller, the search engine will not penalize pages with multiple H1 tags. However, we recommend sticking to one H1 tag per page in order to keep your content topically focused, and prevent issues with keyword cannibalization on your site more generally.

Every page on your site needs an H1 tag

H1 tags should be a required feature on all of your site’s pages. Even if the page is not a content article with a clearly defined headline, you should still come up with a keyword-optimized H1 that clearly indicates to search engines and users what the page is about.

H1 tag length

H1 tags, as a general rule, should be less than 60 characters. There is no technical limit to the character count of an H1 tag, though we recommend keeping it under 60 characters to ensure that your headline is easily readable. This also allows you to use the same text in both your H1 and meta title, which we will discuss in the next section.

H1 Tags vs Title Tags

Title tags are another important HTML element. Like H1 tags, title tags indicate what your page is about to both users and search engines. However, there are some key differences between H1 tags and title tags.

Title tags appear in search engine results pages (SERPs), meaning they are the title of the page that users will see before clicking to your site. They also appear in browser tabs. HTML title tags are not visible anywhere on the content of a page. H1 tags, by comparison, are prominently visible to users on a webpage.

The key difference is that title tags are primarily visible in the SERPs, while H1 tags are visible on your page. It is important to incorporate your primary target keyword for a page into both the title tag and H1.

Can your title tag and H1 tag be the same?

In some instances, title tags and H1 tags can (and should) contain the same text. In the Nordstrom example shown above, “Women’s Shoes” is both the meta title and H1 of the page.

In the New York Times example, the page’s H1 and meta title are different. The meta title is “The Best Hiking Boots of 2023 | Reviews By Wirecutter”. In some instances, you may want to include a few Click-Through-Rate improving features in your title that you don’t necessarily want visible on your page. In this case, those features are brand name, the word “best” and the year the article was published.

Analyze your site’s H1 tags with an SEO Audit

It is important to make sure that every page on your site has a single, keyword-optimized H1 tag. The easiest way to perform this analysis is by running an SEO audit, leveraging a tool like Moz’s On-Demand Crawl. Moz will identify all pages on your site that have missing or invalid H1 tags. You can export these results to a CSV or view them in-app. This is the simplest and quickest way to highlight all pages on your site that have issues associated with their H1 tags.