Are H1 Tags A Google Ranking Factor? - Search Engine Journal

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Can you boost your search rankings in Google by using the right keywords in your H1 tags?

And just how many H1 tags should you use on each webpage, anyway?

There’s been much debate and misunderstanding over the years about how Google perceives H1 content.

So are H1 tags actually a Google ranking factor? Let’s see.

The Claim: H1 Tags As A Ranking Factor

Plenty of “best practices” and recommendations about H1 tags have circulated over the years. Among them:

• You should use lots of keyword-loaded H1 tags to rank higher for specific keywords.
• You should only have one H1 tag per webpage or Google will punish you. (With an algorithmic downgrading? A manual penalty? Fifty lashes with a wet noodle in the town square?).
• You should use your primary keyword at the start of your H1 tag and your secondary keywords in the H2 tags and so on to tell Google what terms you want to rank on.
• You should only use one H1 tag and it should be the first text element on the page.

If you’re confused about the conflicting information out there on this topic, I don’t blame you.

After all, this is the featured snippet for [how to use H1 tags] at the time of writing:

As you’ll learn below, this contradicts everything Google has told us about H1 tags for many, many years.

Let’s take...

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