Hi, does anyone know how important the h1 tag for SEO is? I think other sites are rating better in google, although they have lower PR, because they have the targeted keywords in their h1 tag. So now I changed mine, but I assume it'll take some time till I see changes. Anyone any experiences with that?
I think I remember seeing an experiment that claimed Google likes the H2 tag better. I would just use a good spattering of h1, h2 and h3 tags with content in between.
It sure helps if you use Hx tags. After, all you have nothing to lose. To make them look good you can use CSS (font-weight:normal. It is best if you have the targeted keywords in the page title, description, keywords, Hx, 1-2 alt images (logo) and content, of course + links with those keywords (internal or external) Toni iLoveSEO.com
Couple of months ago H1 seemed to be favourite: http://www.edsolutions.ca/seo-google-test-results-09-05-2004.html
From the edsolutions information it sounds like you need everything. No one is important by itself, but an important part of a system of getting ranked #1 I would do it all h1,h2,title, keywords, content, bold, etc, etc, etc..... tom
The h1 tag is important for accessibility. Same for h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, bold, italics, title, and the alt and title attributes. Use the markup for what it was intended for, and the SE's will treat you fine.
I think it is very important, especially if used properly, near the top. Proper use of heading overall is an important factor IMO - it gives the spiders a nice outline and emphasis of your page, no different than an English paper. For a good "look" at how your page is structured with headings use, check out the detailed validation service at http://validator.w3.org/detailed.html
I'm trying a 3 part title with the primary part in H1 and the second and thrid parts in H2 and H3 respectively. Maybe that's not a good approach from what I see here?
I think that's a good approach. Who knows, when they change their preferences again, you may be ahead of everyone else.
Example: the San Diego Entertainment headline on this link shows in the code as <h1>San Diego Entertainment</h1>
I just discovered that I use H1 for the individual title of each page, and h2 for the title of the website. When the user-agent is a bot, keywords are added to the h2 tag. Should I make the h2 an h1 to get better SE rankings?
I consider the H1 tag the third most important SEO item on a web page. This is after the title and description meta tags. It doesn't matter the seeming importance of H2 and other tags, at times in the search engines. The H1 tag is always going to be a biggie!