Should you use H1 tags (or other header tags)? Are header tags required for SEO? Like so many technical SEO topics, these questions have a complex, nuanced answer…
Quick background: An H1 is one of several HTML tags that can be used to designate page headers. For example:
<h1>Main Heading</h1>There are 6 levels of headers in HTML, ranging from <h1> to <h6>.
<h1>Main Heading</h1>
<h2>Sub-Heading</h2>
<h3>Sub-sub heading</h3>So, do these tags matter for SEO? Short version: not directly. The use of H1 or other header tags is not a ranking factor and is not required by Google.
However, there are plenty of other reasons to use these tags. Properly using these tags can benefit SEO performance. Here are three of the top reasons:
1) Google can replace your website’s SEO title in search results. Google will often replace the SEO title with the text contained in the H1 tag. It is not clear if Google is using the HTML tag itself or making a determination about what text on the page represents the page’s name. Likely, a bit of both. By using an H1 tag around the page’s name, you can make this decision easier for Google. That way, if Google does replace your title, it will hopefully choose the page’s H1 text instead. (This is also why it is often a good idea to have your H1 and SEO title be different.)
2) Google has occasionally talked about the importance of semantic HTML. Semantic HTML means using HTML tags to describe the meaning of content, not just its appearance. This lets you communicate the content’s meaning more clearly via the code. With semantic HTML, header tags communicate the page’s hierarchy. Even though Google won’t use this to boost rankings, semantic HTML can still help search engine bots understand the structure of the page. Semantic HTML might also help AI bots learn from the page’s text, though there isn’t much evidence for this.
3) However, the most important reason to use H1 tags has nothing to do with SEO: using proper header tags will also improve accessibility on your website. Several of WCAG’s success criteria relate to this. For example, 1.3.1 is about Info and Relationships. It makes clear that using H1 and other header tags properly will programmatically communicate the page’s structure and relationships. That way everybody visiting your website will be able to understand the content on your website.