The best SEO trick ever!
Well people… I’m about to let a dirty little secret out of the bag and it’s got to do with optimizing your blog’s “Header Tags” to improve search engine rankings within a week. Whoa, say what? Yep, you read it right. Unlike the hundreds of articles out there that explain the value of properly labeling your “<Header>” tags… I’m going to show you something that has literally made my company thousands of dollars in SEO optimization services.
The Value of your <H1> – <H6> tags
As most of you savvy bloggers already know heading tags (H1 through to H6) are given more weight by search engines than regular body copy. You also already should know that they should be used wisely to reinforce the page’s overall targeted keywords. That said there are a few basics that you should be aware of before starting to go bonkers with modifying your blog’s CSS Style Sheets.
Learn the “Header” tag’s true value
Today it’s pretty common practice to have theme designers incorporate the header tags within their style sheets. In fact, more often than not, their ideas are on the mark, but with a few simple tweaks, you can out rank and out index your competition. But first, you’ve got to know the value that search engines assign these little bad boys.
- <H1> = Most valuable Tag in the toolbox. Usually used for the title of a blog.
- <H2> = Second most valuable tag. This is usually found in the “Title” of each post.
- <H3> = My H3 tags can be found in the sidebar. They are bold with a little star next to it.
- <H4> = Generally unused but quite valuable and should be used.
- <H5> = Generally unused but still valuable to most search engines
- <H6> = Generally unused and least valuable, but not to be wasted.
Using the tags within your posts.
I run across COUNTLESS blogs everyday where authors don’t ever utilize the Header tag in their posts and it’s mind boggling to me. With the release of WordPress 2.5, the simple drop down menu at the top left o your editing screen makes this once aggravating task, beyond simple. Use them.
Helpful in more than one way
Look at my bright pink title above. That my friends is all it take to ass a little style and SEO love juice to your posts! It really couldn’t be more simple. I’m going to try and keep it simple so combining good design, great copyrighting practices and a little SEO fuel, here i my list of why you should use tags within a post.
Heading Tags can be aesthetically pleasing to read.
Header tags break up the monotony of a long winded posts.
“H” TagsHelp direct your readers to focus on your content.
Subliminally gives anxious readers small achievable goals.
Allows you to re-enforce staple points of your post
Add content space to what my be a short post.
Allows you to insert relevant keywords & phrases
Cuts out the trashy “self spamming” routine
… and those are just to name a few. I kept the list short, because that’s not really what this post is all about. So without further ado, here’s my little secret that can change the way spiders look at your site forever!
Re-Styling your <H> tags!
The look and style of your “Header” tags are controlled within you blog’s main style sheet. Usually, named style.css. Now I’ won’t go into lessons of coding CSS because every design is different, but I will tell you that with a few simple tweaks, you can add even more punching power to your posts. How? Ha ha…. just restyle them to match your body text.
Choosing the right tags to alter
Since the <H4>, <H5> and <H6> tags are almost ALWAYS under utilized, we are going to start with those. The idea is a simple one. Edit your last three available head tags to mimic the style of your body text. Huh? It’s easy I promise! Here is an example of body text I’ve got:
body{
color:#333;
font-family: Georgia, “Times New Roman”, Times, serif;
font-size: 11px;
As you can see the color of the font is not quite black, the font is Georgia, and the size is 11pts. Now we want to locate the <H> tags within our style sheet and modify them to match. For this example… here is an existing <H6> tag that we are going to re-style:
h6{
margin:5px 0;
padding:0;
font-size:12px;
color:#333
As you can see there are quite a few differences. But your job is to make the <H6> identical to the <body> tags and don’t worry It’s as easy as a little cut and paste… here is the final code!
h6{
color:#333
font-family: Georgia, “Times New Roman”, Times, serif;
font-size: 11px;
Now you’re locked an loaded! Save the file, upload it back to your server and start blogging using this little trick in every one of you posts. Choose your three main keywords and key phrases and order them according to what you find their value to be. The most important words and phrases for you blog should be assigned <H4> and the least important should use <H6> tags. But be consistent! Use the same tags, for the same words and phrases!!!
Some good advice to follow
Now that you’re done writing your awesome post, go back through it, highlight your target copy and simply choose the appropriate tag from the drop down that WordPress oh so graciously provides us (2.5 and higher)…. that’s it! Oh and one thing to remember… using tags is like steroids… DON’T over due it. A handful of tags is worth more than a post loaded with keyword spam (A good example of self spamming) Keyword spam might make you feel good now, but within weeks, you can quietly disappear off the grid and never be found again. So get out there and tweak that CSS!
If you thought this was informative… Stumble it for me, it only takes a sec… and if you’re really feeling randy… comment on it for me!
July 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Great tips Pisser!
Aesthetically, I think I’d prefer to have the headings within the post look slightly different though, like different color, or indent the content at least. Not just for the look of it, but also not to confuse visitors thinking they’re clickable headings like the main ones. Easily done though.
Nice “extra dig” with the link to self spamming. lol
July 7th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
@ Suite J: Oh I am with you on the different looks! My site where I sell an e-book is styled to the max, but here on PB… I wasn’t all that worried about it. After all, I don’t really have a niche yet. Yep, easy to change, but didn’t want to go into any of that with non-design oriented folks. One step at a time and thanks for the Stumble… or Dig… LOL
July 7th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
LOL. I stumbled you!
What is the ebook site anyway? I’ve seen you mention it, but not link it. Don’t make me investigate you to find out. I don’t have time right to do that at the moment. Just tell me! Now! (*please*) lol
July 7th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
@ SuiteJ: I’ll be divulging the secret soon enough. I’ll be looking to partner up with some of you and then it will rear it’s head! LOL… patience my friend, it’s coming.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:05 am
PB this is a great post! I have heard about the importance of the header tags, BUT, no one has laid it out with the various value of each one like you have….I love it.
I will try to start using this more in my posting, and of course, will be using this post as a reference.
see ya
July 8th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Just trying to get clarification: Are you saying to make the H4, H5, and H6 tags identical and the same as the body text? And are your pink titles your H2?
July 8th, 2008 at 5:23 am
That is interesting, I did start breaking down my posts and give them a H4 tags in the titles some time ago. In the past and even sometimes now I just wrote one big block of text but that doesn’t read easily and visitors might drop out early.
By breaking up a post in small parts and giving them each a title between tags will make it a lot easier to read.
That’s what I like about blogging, I’m actually not a “writer” but in this way I’m slowly learning to write in the right way, just like you mentioned in your post here. Good to know about the seo advantages. thanks for sharing.
July 8th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Wow, I never knew that… Obviously I’m not one of those savvy blogger types *g*
Thanks for the tip, I’ll try and use it in all of my blogs
July 8th, 2008 at 9:11 am
@ JK: Welcome and you’re welcome! LOL Thanks for visiting and I’m glad yo enjoyed it.
@ Blue: I’m not suggesting that you have to, I just think if you’re looking for that added little boost, this can help. As for My Blog… LOL… Yeh, the pink is H2, and the bold with the star is H3… Nope PB is NOT optimized!
Still need to do that myself!
@ Robin: No Problemo! Glad it helped.
@ Jovana: I’ll be checking on that!
July 8th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Hi, PB:
I’ve heard the tag names before, but wasnt sure which was which. What about wordpress plugins, which profess to claim that they take care of things like this.
Such as the All In One SEO wp plugin?
July 8th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hey, i got a “you cannot rate this site” from SU. ??
July 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Oh I never really expect you to come up with this kind of post, PB but you have let out one of the best yet overlooked SEO tricks.
I haven’t gone beyond using on my site yet. I’m just not well-informed of where I should use it and I’m not too sure if that’s the right thing for SEO. Anyway, I’m kind of satisfied with my SERP for my chosen keywords so far. So I guess I’ll just leave it as it is for now.
Yan
July 8th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
The pisser strikes again. Good stuff buddy!
July 8th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Don’t check?
I’ll have to go and try to change the style of them though, I don’t like them at their current state.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
@ Missy: Good question. Truth be told though, the All-in-One-SEO Pack does not edit, modify, or manage your tags.
It will however modify the “Title Name” on a post, as well as the “Main Title” of the blog. In essence, it only manages the actual output of “Title” tags found in “Meta” data… not tags found in your content.
@ Missy # 2: Thanks for the stumble attempt, I just tried it and it’s working fine, so if you don’t mind giving it another whirl… I’d appreciate it!
@ Yan: Thanks for the totally awesome compliment! Feel free to add it to you’re latest post about SEO stuff! Compliments of Piss Biscuit of course!
@ Bryan: Expect nothing less kind sir! LOL, actually, I’d be thrilled if I could get the ol fluffer going strong!
@ Jovana: Clock is ticking! LOL, if you need a little help, let me know.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Thanks for the great post. It has been a few days since I have visited and it looks like I have missed some good info. (I have been a little busy
I have only learned how to edit my CSS in the last few months and I have found it is really not that hard. It is the proper use of the H tags that gets me. What do you say about these so called “Site Rankers” that devalue your site if you have too many H1 tags and so on. Should it be limited to just a few keywords or are we free to use H1 and H2 with whatever is relevant for that post?
July 8th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I was using these avidly when I launched, although if you skim through recent posts I have let off of this. In turn I have noticed in my analytics that my organic traffic from search engines has went down a bit. This was just the motivating post I needed to get back on the horse per say. Thanks!
July 8th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
@ Coach: As I mentioned in my post…
“…Oh and one thing to remember… using tags is like steroids… DON’T over due it. A handful of tags is worth more than a post loaded with keyword spam (A good example of self spamming”link”) Keyword spam might make you feel good now, but within weeks, you can quietly disappear off the grid and never be found again.” (De-Indexed or sand boxed)
When I mention tags… I mean “H” tags not description tags that WordPress also now makes super easy to change. They are two different goodies, that server two different purposes. But I also want to be clear up that I’m not telling you to change your “H1″ or “H2″ tags… or even “H3″ for that matter.
I do recommend changing “H4″ “H5″ “H6″. But again, don’t over due it as it might result in spam flags. The tags are worth more than keyword spam like on “Vic’s” post that I gave as an example.
Ya see, search engines credit more value to words or phrases that are bold, or italicized. So people like Vic teach that it’s okay to fill your post with bold versions of your keywords or phrases. This is not good. My secret, avoids aggravating, OBVIOUS, keyword spamming.
In closing… write a normal post. Include your keywords in a normal manor. Then apply the H tags according to the steps I go over in my post.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
@ Big Ben: Welcome to PB! Thanks for dropping in, I hope to read more from you in the future! As for the motivational speech… glad I could help!
July 11th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Does this tricks apply on blogspot blog too? I had tried once to make h2, h3 and h4 but when I’m check using Raven SEO tools, headers elements was not properly used.
July 12th, 2008 at 1:34 am
@ Halim: h1, h2, h3, h4, and so on… are all dictated by CSS style sheets. I checked out your blog, and you DO have “h” tags active. I do not use blogger, so I’m not sure to what extent you can or cannot edit them… but you sure can use them. Did this answer your question?
August 28th, 2008 at 2:59 am
PB,
Great post. i used H4 on my post but didn’t knew that Header tags gets importance by search engines.
Will start using it from now…
Nihar
Nihars last blog post..India v Sri Lanka 4th ODI Highlights – India in Sri Lanka – IDEA Cup
August 28th, 2008 at 9:04 am
@ Nihar: Thanks bro! Hang around a while. There’s more on the way