Use of H1 - H6 Tags in Website Content

Just a quick question with regards to SEO based around offpage / source code optimisation...

I hear a lot about H tags being good for SEO but despite the fact I have been doing SEO for nearly 6 years I have never really used them because they look ugly. Obviously now with the wonders of CSS I can make them look and fit into the rest of the sites design but my questions are...

1). How much of a difference do they really make?
2). What type / how many H1 / H2 tags can I get away with using on 1 page.
3). Are linked H tags better for the linked or the linking page.
4). Does adding a bold tag give the H tag any extra weight (not font weight).

H tags have always been a grey area in my book and I havnt used them for fear of screwing something up.

 

H tags a grey area? I can't see why, they are an acceptable standard and a must for SEO purposes.

1. Big difference. H tags as well as title, link, alt tags etc all play an important SEO role. In that sense, H tags are just as important as those others.

2. Use whatever type you want. Generally I only use H1/h2 myself. Depends how much content you have though.
Don't spam - it's obvious. Don't use the tags unless its a heading - ie not in the content itself.

3. I don't believe this is too important. There is no need to make H tags link (unless you're doing something like wordpress does, in linking the article title).

4. No, there is no point adding a bold tag to H tags since they are bold by default anyway.

There's no need to make H tags a grey area... they are a fundamental and basic part of SEO.
Use them properly and they will be to your advantage.

 

I have been using them in what I consider to be an okay fashion.

H1 = Main Site Title
H2 = Subheader Title
H4 = Menus / Product Titles

Seems a little over zealous if you know what I mean.... Maybe its just me being paranoid...

 

Yep, you're paranoid because you're using them correctly

 

Well hopefully things will improve soon, only made these changes in the last few days but since then traffic has doubled.

small things... small things...

Thanks for help...

 

I'm not sure if adding those tags would cause traffic to double so quickly, but if it did then that's excellent

 

H1 for the title of the page
H2 for the important sections on the page, some use them for important links.


That's as far as I go on a content site. I don't put heading tags on links (never H1) unless it's a directory.

 

I seem to be using H4 tags for the main menu links, seems to work anyway and from an SEO point of view should help with the internal linking strategy for the site...