I was told by an SEO company that they see good results by using 2-3 H4 tags on the same page with different titles, but containing the same keyword found in the H1 tag. Just wondered if anyone here believes this to be a good idea. For example: (proper syntax ignored for example) H1: green and purple widgets H4: you can find green and purple widgets in our big store H4: have you ever considered green and purple widgets H4: green and purple widgets can help you look good
Can they provide you with a live example? or any supporting reference? There is no reason for the Search Engines to rank the page this way..
I have a hard time believing this makes that big of a difference. I would be much more concerned with selecting specific keywords for specific pages and organizing them in a way that helps the engines better understand what keywords they should rank for (i.e. site.com/space/galaxies/milky-way/orion-arm/solar-system/earth/ (each section getting more and more focused)). Then I would work on getting links with the correct keywords in them linking to their appropriate page. That and great content will get you 90% of the way there. If you are going to use it, however, I’m not sure I would use it the way you outlined. I might, however, do something like this: H1 - Galaxies H2 - Milky Way Galaxy H3 - Solar systems of the Milky Way Galaxy H4 - Planets within our solar system of the Milky Way Galaxy This way, each heading is a true subset if it superior heading. It starts broad and gets more and more focused. Each subheading reinforcing the heading. Hope that makes sense.
This H4 tag technique is coming from Sumantra Roy's SEO company. According to stuff I've read about him, he is a true SEO master. I wanted to start duplicating the work his company has done for me, but recently, I've started to doubt the quality of work and wanted to validate some of his technique at DP.
Well regardless if it is a H1 or H4 - or none at all - it is a sound strategy The seem to understand the concept of relevance-Latent Semantics and Phrasing technologies. Even using those text structures with Bold/Italic/Bullets would work. Any kind of prominence factoring So the theory is sound, if not limited in the description and/or usage. I have never heard of them myself.. but there are soooooo many of us out here
Seems good to me. I'd try not to use exactly the same keyword phrase in all 4 H tags though. That could be nearing the tipping point of being a little too optimized!
the use of all H tags is favourable but the advantage is likely to be minor. having said that everylittle bit helps
This is more-over the actual structure and reasoning behind the H tags and how/why search engines rank them over paragraph text; it is similar to a pyramid in rankings, yes. I repped this user for such a post.
Excellent... I am getting used to that from ya though I have no idea what U R talking about M8.. it makes little sense and please do show us the evidence on "the actual structure and reasoning behind the H tags and how/why search engines rank them" Which SEs and where did you get the evidence for this statement?
If EGS has evidence he wants to give you, fine. All I will say, however, is that I have been doing SEO since 1995 and have been doing it for a couple of Fortune 500's. This technique has worked well for me over the years, but you can do whatever you want with it. If you don't like it, don't use it! ...In fact, that would actually work out better for my sites ;-) Added: I don't generally dig around to backup my statement, but this one just came to mind: seomoz's Search Engine Ranking Factors (citebite.com/j7u8t1i1guih). Read the highlighted and EGOL's comments below it. There's probably much more out there, but I'm not going to dig for it.
Well that document is a tad old as well.. it also states Compliant Code is a ranking factor...which it is certainly not. So I consider the source... I am an old hand as well and chit chat with many TOP SEOs and have never heard of anyone seriously using this.. Go right ahead and play Pyramids with your H tags...I won't create any realistic advantage.. I could simply get say.. 2 quality backlinks to overtake whatever perceived advantage there is... Like I said... the text construction is sound based on semantics and phrase based IR technologies. Any form of Prominence factoring will have a positive effect.. Outside of that ... stay away from playing with Pyramids... it is not the best use of ones time and would have no more than standard prominence work… I am actually happy you didn’t have some back up… cause I would be shaking my head at ANYONE that wasted time on such research…
Thanks... I just started a thread to kind of rant on the whole H1 thang... it's getting weird.. like a cult of H tags... lol Anywhoo... the thread is 'If I may be so bold' - http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=220915 I took it over there.... I am with U as far as 'fire and forget it' - just not nearly enough benefit to get worked up about...