Search Engines And Headlines
SEO Headline Example
In search engine optimization, headlines are one of the most important factors in letting search engines know what your page is about.
Remember, your goal is to get the highest ranking possible for the specific search phrases you’re targeting. The search phrases you’re targeting should be those keyword phrases that you believe (or have research to support) your customers are using to find your type of products or services.
On this blog post you’ll notice that my headlines are focused on letting search engines know this page is about search engine optimization and headlines.
What is a Headline?
A headline in terms of search engines is any text that is defined as a headline in the source code (like <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc.). A headline can also be text that is emphasized by being made larger, italicized <em> or <i>, or bold <b> or <strong>.
When viewed in a browser, headlines can practically look like anything–from small and normal-looking to huge and headline-looking.
On this blog some of the headlines appear in a browser like this:
h2
h3
h4
h5
How To Write Great SEO Headlines
The best practice for letting search engines know what your page is about, is to:
- use the heading tags in descending order of importance with <h1> being degrees more important than <h6>
- only use one h1 tag per page
- use the keywords in your headline that you’ve decided are the most important for you to rank well for that fit with the content on your page. For instance, if you sell wheat beer, headlines on a page talking about your cultivation might be “Wheat Beer Cultivation” and “How our cultivation is different” and “Why wheat beer tastes better.”
- use words in your headlines that match up with the words used in the page title, meta keywords, meta description, and text on the page. The more consistent you are on each page, the more confidence search engines will have in what your page is about, the higher you’ll rank for that keyword phrase.
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