SEO Onpage (where I need to put the H1/2/3)?

[JohnPalmer]

Hi everybody,

I'm working on my new website, and I have a few questions about the Headers (<h 1="" 2="" 3="">)
please see the attached image, I create a mock-up for you, please tell me which H I have to put on the title.
(** most of the articles will be without sub-titles so...it will be dynamic, but try to take a look on the "sidebar" and "menu link".</h>

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[ramansaab]

Here is an example to use all these tags

SEO BASICS

Some text

On Page Optimization

Some text

Link Building

Some text

[JohnPalmer]

Please see my image, I put there all my "titles" please tell me what I need to write as H or P. please

[JohnPalmer]

someone?

[MattRoney]

Hi John!

Honestly, it's hard to say because it will depend on the content on the page. H1 is intended to be the main headline of the page. In your case, I suppose H1 would be the title of the item, with H2 for the subtitle. The menus/sidebar may not actually need H-tags, especially if they remain constant on the whole site.

Does that make a little more sense?

[JohnPalmer]

so only the titles of the text?
sidebar with list of articles for example "Most Viewed" no need H?? I see H in every wordpress theme on "sidebar widgets"..

I'm really confused...

[MattRoney]

In general, H-tags are intended for headlines. That's why they've typically been seen as (at this point somewhat weak) ranking signals—the headline of a page is a decent indication of what the page is about, which helps the search engines determine what to serve that page in response to particular searches.

I honestly can't see a reason to use H-tags is a widget title like "Most Viewed." It does nothing to communicate what the page is about, and if you're also using an H-tag for the page headline, the second one may "confuse" crawlers. There are other ways to format those widget titles.

I really like Wesley Smits's analogy from this Q&A thread:

What i would like to add to his answer is that you should look at H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 tags as if the webpage is a book. In a book the chapter-title is a H1 tag. All the subchapters have an H2 tag. If these subchapters have another sub-area then this would be marked up with an H3 tag and so on.

Having a clear hierarchy in your heading tags will make it more user friendly. Search engines might also understand better which parts of the content are connected to each other and which are separate because of this.

I really can't speak to why Wordpress themes would be using H-tags in widget/sidebar titles. It's certainly not what I'd recommend.