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Wisdom

Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.

Jeffrey Zeldman

SEO Heading Format and Style

All text based content should be clearly visually structured to help the reader quickly find the information they are looking for. This is also true for Search Engines. The best way to accomplish this is using the HTML Heading Tags: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4> etc.

Most on and offline editors typically display this is a drop down text format box that commonly contains the following options:

Paragraph
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3
Heading 4 etc

Only use Heading 1 <h1> once<

The main page title text should be the only content marked with the Heading 1 <h1> tag. The text in this heading get the greatest priority in Search Engine Rank and should contain keyword that accurately describe the content in the page. When using a CMS this tag is normal generated by the system and not available in the online content editor.

Use Headings in proper order<

This makes visual and theoretical sense. So we should use Heading 2 <h2> for the next heading after Heading 1 <h1>. Once we have used a Heading 2 <h2> tag we can further subdivide the content using Heading 3 <h3> etc. We can then revert back to a higher level Heading 2 <h2> tag is the topic of the content changes. For example:

Fruit Topic - Heading 2<

Everyone should eat lots of fruit. It's tasty and good for you

Just About Oranges - Heading 3<

Oranges are my favorite fruit.

Oranges look good - Heading 4<

The unique texture of oranges makes them interesting to look at. The color is very bright and appealing.

Oranges taste good too - Heading 4<

They are sweet and sour. The flavor is bold and tasty.

Let's talk Apples - Heading 3<

Now we can discuss apples.

Inline font styles on Headings<

Headings use predefined visual styles to ensure proper visual hierarchy. If we want to change the appearance of a heading then we are probably using the wrong level of heading or have not properly structured the content. Using Bold <b> or Strong <strong> tags within a heading disrupts the visual style and changes the priority in a negative way.

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