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!

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