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Tag: keywords

Do H1 Tags Impact Rankings?

Posted on by Ella

“H1 tags improve your SEO”.

True or false?

In this article we’ll be putting the H1 tag beneath the magnifying glass and assess its true ability to help bolster your website rankings. We’ll also explore what Google has to say and guide you step by step through how you can optimise the H1 tag for your website.

What is the H1 tag?

H1 tags are those snippets of HTML which help highlight the most important information on a webpage. They’re mainly used for page titles, blog post titles, or to name the page or topic and are written like this:

<h1 class=”entry-title” itemprop=”headline”> Do H1 Tags Impact Rankings? </h1>

They help explain the topic of a page to both readers and search engines alike, provide essential structure and generally help the text to stand out from the rest of the page.

They’re usually bigger, bolder and easier to read than the surrounding text and can vary in length from just a few words to an entire sentence.

Without them, the page would lack structure and it would be much harder to attract a reader and encourage them to fully engage with the content.

This is especially important as modern readers are more likely to skim read and have limited time to find the information they need, thus needing signposts like this.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are other tags which range in ‘importance’ from H1 (most ‘important’) down to H6 (least ‘important’). Like H1 tags, they help structure the webpage and provide a page hierarchy for Google to index. This can positively influence search results and simultaneously reduce bounce rates and improve user experience.

Why are H1 tags important to SEO?

Some debate in SEO circles suggests that H1 tags don’t matter, given that they no longer directly affect search engine rankings as they did in the early 2000s.

In the words of Google’s John Mueller, “Your site is going to rank perfectly fine with no H1 tags…”

However, others believe that these heading tags do improve the overall content quality, readability and user experience, despite speculation that they have been ‘crowded out’ by more advanced metrics.

Of course, Google won’t crawl your webpage, signpost your recent inclusion of H1 tags and instantly bump you up to 1st place on the SERP. But Google will notice the change in the behaviour of your readers. For example, whether they click away from your page quickly or engage with your content and keep reading. This could then influence your search rankings.

In the Search Engine Ranking Factors survey conducted by Moz in 2015, tags were indeed the third most influential ranking factor. Additionally, another similar study from 2018 showed that on-page ranking factors such as keywords in titles were the second most influential factor.

What does Google say about H1 tags and rankings?

Despite John Mueller’s statement claiming that your site would rank even if it doesn’t have any H1 tags, he also confirmed that H1 tags can help search understand the structure of prose;

“H1 elements are a great way to give more structure to a page so that users and search engines can understand which parts of a page are kind of under different headings.

So I would use them in the proper way on a page. And especially with HTML5 having multiple H1 elements on a page is completely normal and kind of expected.”

How should you implement the H1 tag effectively?

  • Have an H1 tag on every page: Avoid confusion, increase reader satisfaction and help to reduce bounce rates by making it clear to search engines and readers alike what your page is about. Make sure you include at least one H1 tag on each page.
  • Don’t use more than one: You wouldn’t see a newspaper that had twenty front page news headlines or find a book with several titles. It would be hard to make sense of, let alone easy to read. Keep it simple. Just use one.
  • Make them all unique: Duplicate content is a big no-no when it comes to SEO. Ensure that every H1 tag is unique and bespoke to the page content.
  • Aim for between 20 and 70 characters: Too short and you’re not giving yourself much chance to be descriptive. Too long and you could confuse your potential website visitor.
  • Include H2 tags too: Again, adding other tags helps to provide structure to the page rendering your webpage easier to index and easier for your reader to extract vital information. Aim to include relevant secondary keywords in these tags where appropriate.

Final thoughts

While those H1 tags won’t make or break your search engine rankings, they do help to improve overall user experience and help Google understand your site structure better. This means they’re certainly worth optimising for and getting right.

7 SEO Mistakes that You Should Avoid

Posted on by Chloe

Anyone who is involved in digital marketing and a business’s online presence will know how important SEO is to the success of its website. SEO is the key to your website being found online, and it is therefore essential that you get it right.

The world of SEO, however, is ever-changing. With new trends, new tools and new algorithms coming out all of the time, it is easy to overlook things and make mistakes.

By dealing with these mistakes, you can give your website a new lease of life, enhance your SEO and see your website shoot up those search engine rankings.

Seven of the most common SEO mistakes which are made include:

1.   Not using Google Search Console

Google’s Search Console (or Webmaster Tools as it used to be called) has been gifted to webmasters to give you everything you need for good SEO. Search Console allows you to monitor your site with regards to SEO, submit content for crawling, see the search queries that people are using to find your website and check backlinks.

It is also where they would be able to communicate with you and advise you of any problems – such as manual penalties, crawling errors, any malware that has been detected, and increases in 404 pages.

Everyone can sign up to Google Search Console, meaning that you don’t have to guess anymore. You should also sign up to Bing’s Webmaster Tools who can also give you similar information about your website’s performance on Bing.

2.   Not getting the H1 tags right

It can sometimes be difficult to understand when to use H1 and H2 tags. More than just a font size or making a page look nice, H1 and H2 tags tell the search engines what your pages are about. If you don’t use them or aren’t accurate in the way that you use them, you will be giving the wrong information to the search engine, and, ultimately get penalised because you are not giving their searchers what they want.

Use the H1 tag as the title of your page, and only once. Make it clear and related to the information that is being given – like the title of a book. Any sub-headings should then be made under the H2 tag, and then H3 for sub-sub-headings under H2 and so on.

3.   Not using the Google Keyword Tool

Another useful tool from Google is the Keyword Tool. This gives webmaster details about what queries people are making before they are directed to your website. Keyword research allows you to see what is and isn’t working, and then change your content accordingly.

It is important to remember that businesses with a big online presence are likely to be focusing on the most popular keywords, so try to focus on long-tail and low completion keywords to get your presence higher.

4.   Not having great content

Good content is all about creating trust and authority. As Google continue to develop their algorithms, content is no longer about stuffing it full of keywords, but more about being useful and interesting.

Make sure that you have a good content marketing strategy and that the content is well written, packed with information and something that people will want to read.

5.   Not having a plan

It is important to be consistent when you are posting content for SEO purposes. Search engines hate inconsistency and the best way to be consistent is by having a plan.

Creating a publishing schedule which details how many times you will be publishing content and having a few back up articles which are ready to go will help you stay consistent and help push your website to the top of the search engine rankings.

6.   Not having internal links

Internal links are crucial to good SEO. Not only can they direct your visitors to other pages on your site – which can help you to engage with them better, but internal links will also show the search engines about other pages that you have.

It is easy to create an internal link from any content that you have, and both your readers and SEO rankings will thank you for it.

7.   Having a slow website

We all know how infuriating a slow website can be. It is enough to put people off reading it, making your bounce rate higher, which in turn will lead to lower SEO rankings.

Check that your loading speed isn’t being affected by the formatting on your website and seek help if you can’t make any difference to your website’s speed.

Getting your SEO right is no mean feat, especially as the criteria keep on changing. But there is a lot of help out there – even through the tools that search engines are supplying, and by making a few changes, you could see your website charging up to the top of those search results.

5 Reasons Why You Need to Focus on Long-Tail Keywords

Posted on by Chloe

Long-tailed keywords are powerful weapons for  websites – they account for 70% of all web searches. Here are 5 reasons why you need to focus on long-tail keywords.

1 – They are great for drawing traffic

A website that reviews credit cards will have little use for long-tailed keywords. The name of the credit card being reviewed is the most powerful keyword. The second most powerful keyword is the name of the credit card followed by the word “Review.” SEO revolving around these keywords would help a financial website business thrive.

However, a website giving tutorials on the Blender 3D animation program will benefit from long-tailed keywords that span into questions, and it will benefit from the content, questions, and answers contributed by followers in the Blender community. Such a website will even draw traffic from long-tailed keywords embedded in questions that people have asked on its forums.

2 – Google Images Appreciates Long-Tailed Keywords

Stop underestimating Google images. If people cannot find what they are looking for, they will check Google images and Google videos. In fact, many times, people cannot remember the name of what they are looking for, so they will enter a search phrase and check Google images to see what looks familiar. Title your images and include descriptive Alt text, and this will act as your long-tailed keywords.

Also, as a side note, try creating your own images, either through graphic design, photography, or both, and then add them to your website because they will rank higher on the Google images search engine results, as Google recognises when you have copied an image from another online source. Also, images are handy for people who are aiming to improve their mobile SEO.

3 – Marketing Companies Are Leveraging Long-Tailed Keywords

Do not misunderstand, there are marketing companies that are concentrating on smaller key-phrases, but they are only doing so with businesses that thrive on smaller/popular keywords. For example, if a marketing company is promoting the new Suzuki Katana, then the keyword “Suzuki Katana” will be the most powerful keyword. However, many marketing companies are refocusing their efforts towards long-tailed keywords and they are doing very well.

4 – Long Tailed Keyword Movement Is More Stable

The shorter and most popular keywords are heavily contested. One week, on Google’s first page, the keyword “orthotics,” the SERPs are full of different results that may not always be what you’re looking for, as shorter keywords provide broad results and thus more competition.

However, if you enter the long-tailed keyword, “Best orthotics for climbing,” then you are more likely to see a smaller range of results on the first page of the SERP (search engine results page). This means there is less competition, and that it’s quicker and easier to rank at number one.

5 – Google Suggestions Are Long-Tailed Keywords

Type in a few words, and Google generates suggestions based on what it thinks you want. The Google suggestions function is the reason why long-tailed keywords are so powerful. Google suggestions are written as sentences, and these sentences may act as long-tailed keywords in and of themselves, and/or they contain usable long-tailed keywords.

It is often a good idea to search Google for your web pages and steal a few long-tailed keywords from the Google suggestions that are generated.

Conclusion – Experience Teaches the Best Lessons

Your own experience will verify what you have read here. As you upload content and you search for suitable images, you will see your own images appear for the oddest long-tailed keywords, and you will notice how the keywords you stole from Google suggestions seem to generate consistent traffic.

Experience will teach you what is working and what is not, as SEO is fluid, dynamic and shifts whenever user interest shifts.