Wordpress SEO : Optimize your Wordpress theme headings (h1, h2, h3)

By fiLi • Apr 15th, 2007 • Category: SEO, Wordpress

Headings (H1, H2, H3) are an important SEO factor that is often not optimized in Wordpress themes. There is a common agreement that a right headings design make a big difference for search engines as the search engines rely on headings to understand what content is about. Headings SEO (H1, H2, H3) for your Wordpress is something you should consider. I’ll first give a short overview on why headings might matter, specifically heading1 (H1), and then the changes that might be needed in your Wordpress theme.

There are numerous resources on the importance of headings. SEOmoz, with the leading SEO article  "Keyword Use Factors" summarizing several SEO consultants, regards  "Keyword Use in H1 Tag" ("Creating an H1 tag with the targeted search term/phrase") as the 4th most important SEO factor. A little lower, ranked 7th most important SEO factor, is "Keyword Use in H2, H3, H(x) Tags" ("Placing targeted terms in the H2, H3 headline HTML tags"). Although comments suggest that headings should be used with care, it still seems to count as it does tell alot about the content and structure of your page.

Problogger recently had a post "Is Your Blog Template Holding You Back?" interviewing 2 experts who commented on "what are some of the things you did to my template to make such drastic improvements":

The theme emphasizes your titles and other important “keyword cues” by properly using header tags (h2, h3, etc.)

True, but especially H1. Looking at Darren’s code, headings are not used right. Examining most Wordpress themes you’ll notice that, strangely, H1 is usually static across all pages pointing to the blog name and that H2 is used for both the post title and sidebar headings. Having a static H1 that has little relevance to your post and having your sidebar’s headings marked as keywords for your post is not good practice.

The original Wordpress theme I based this blog on had exactly the same problems, and to answer the question of what needs to be done for a drastic improvement I suggest the following quick changes:

  • Change your static H1 into something dynamic that matches your current post. If you’re currently using H2 for that, change H1 to a DIV class and change H2 to H1. Although Aaron Wall (on SEOmoz) doesn’t seem to think it’s a good idea to have the H1 heading resemble the page title, I think it’s alot better than having a static one, but if you’re feeling creative you could think about using H1 for the keywords generated for your post (manually, or by UTW and MetaTags). Just make sure you don’t repeat H1 more than once, and so I suggest you don’t use the post titles as H1 on index, archive and search, but just on your single posts.
  • Preferably, don’t use H1 or H2 for your sidebar headings. If you do so, change those to something else, maybe a lower heading like H4, H5.

Suggest readings :

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4 Responses »

  1. David Bradley on May 3rd, 2007 at 7:52 am:

    Sounds like good advice. My original site (pre-WP-blog) pushed all the right buttons and was a PR8 for a time. But, now dropped a notch and since that point began using WP. I’ve now followed your advice re H1 on single post pages, but cannot figure out exactly what to use the H1 on the actual science blog homepage, what would you suggest as a fix?

    Thanks

    db

  2. fiLi on May 3rd, 2007 at 11:26 pm:

    PR isn’t actually directly related to things like headings. PR drop could be caused by either lost of incoming links (backlinks) or maybe a change in Google’s algorithm. I wouldn’t worry about that too much, just keep doing what you’re doing, keep track of your incoming links, try to get more, and you’ll do fine.
    Headings optimization might, however, affect SERP. My experience shows HO results in higher rankings. Together with your very high PR, with the right SEO, you should be getting the top SERP for most of your keywords.

    So, as for headings on homepage, H1 shouldn’t be repeated more than once, so - like you - I haven’t applied those to post titles on homepage (/archives/categories). I would suggest wrapping your blog’s (/categories) general keywords around the H1. In your case, I would imagine it’s something related to science - just do a simple keyword analysis with Google’s/Wordtracker like tools.

    Good luck.

  3. David Bradley on May 4th, 2007 at 1:17 am:

    well, yes, I was kind of using PR as a broader more generic way of saying rank and position in the SERPs. Thanks for the suggestion re archives categories. I don’t actually have those appearing on my homepage, but your comment has given me an idea on how to get an H1 keyword into it that is soooo obvious.

    Thanks!

    db

  4. Richard on June 12th, 2008 at 10:17 pm:

    Fili, I am kind of a newbie to Wordpress but not to technology. I like your explanation of the importance of the H1 tag but I am a bit unclear about the implementation.

    Like you mentioned, my theme puts my blog name in the H1 tag everywhere and puts the blog’s description in every h2 tag.

    Are you suggesting, on each post, to place the title in the H1 tag. Thus, the H1 surrounds the title?

    Did I get that right? And what would you recommend changing the H2 title to?

    Thanks in advance,
    Richard

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