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September 15, 1999
Better Rankings with Heading Tags
Although I discussed heading tags back in December 1997, I felt this topic was sufficiently important to warrant a refresher course.
After you submit your Web site to the major search engines (with the exception of Yahoo and other directories) all the words on your pages will be "indexed" to determine page "themes." Search engines employ automated "spiders" that visit your site and attempt to understand its content. If it does a good job, when someone conducts a search in that engine, pages will be returned that are highly relevant to the query. A few simple changes to your Web pages can help them appear near the top of the list when users search for topics related to your Web site or business. You'll be amazed at all of the new traffic from some top 10 positions!
When building Web pages, many people overlook one of the more influential elements in the way an engine scores the page: the HEADING tag. Headings are the larger print, or subtitles on a page. Headings come in various sizes represented by the HTML tags <H1>, <H2>, <H3>, etc., where <H1> is larger than <H2>. Many engines will evaluate the keywords within heading tags and assign them far more weight than words contained in the body text. When you think about it, this is only logical since headings often give a summary of the page, or a section topic for the page. Therefore, your most important keywords should be repeated in the heading tags just as you would in the <TITLE> tag. Take a look at this example of a page with heading tags:
<HTML> <HEAD>
<TITLE>Widgets and More!</TITLE>
<meta name="description" content="Widgets by Jerry's Widget Emporium are the best widgets money can buy.">
<meta name="keywords" content="blue widgets,green widgets,red widgets, Jerry's Widget Emporium">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Widgets Explained:</H1>
<P>Widgets by Jerry's Widget Emporium are the best widgets money can buy.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
The above example assumes Widget is the most important keyword which is why it is repeated in the Title, the Body, and most importantly, in the Heading tag. Use multiple heading tags throughout your page if you like, but always try to stuff them with the keywords you're trying to emphasize. If you're using Microsoft FrontPage or another WYSIWYG editor, it should allow you to select a heading "style" or some other way to visually create the equivalent to an HTML heading tag.
TIP#1: If you're building a "doorway"" page as described in our September 1997 issue, always keep the page content focused on a single theme and a limited number of keywords so you don't "dilute" the effectiveness of the page. Avoid the temptation to write about things unrelated to "widgets" or your primary keywords, at least for the doorway pages you want to rank better.
TIP#2: Please notice that I used the keyword "widget" at the BEGINNING of the heading, the title tag, and the first paragraph. When you're having a tough time getting your page scored higher for your keyword, having the keyword in the FIRST position rather than the second or third can make all the difference.
TIP#3: Notice that I purposely used the plural form of the word Widget to double our potential visibility. Consider adding an "S" to your keyword whenever possible.
Please be aware that the above tips are generalized. They will certainly help improve your odds of a top ranking in general. However, you must be careful to not use the keyword too many times, or too few times in each area of the page. The acceptable ranges will vary depending on the engine and the area of the page. That's why the Page Critic module of WebPosition Gold will analyze your page and then notify you whenever you're outside of optimal limits based on our statistical research. The tips given by the Critic are custom-tailored toward your page and are therefore far more specific than what can be offered in this newsletter.
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