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H1 and Heading Structure: How to Organize Page Headings
A practical guide to headings: what the H1 and H2–H6 are for, the rules of a good hierarchy, how H1 differs from the title tag, and how to audit your structure.
Run a fresh DomainLens audit and use the report as your priority list.
What the H1 and headings are for
Headings (H1 through H6) are the outline of your page. They tell a reader — and a search engine, and a screen reader — how the content is organised and what each section is about. The H1 is the page’s main heading: the one-line answer to "what is this page?", shown on the page itself, unlike the title tag which lives in the SERP and the browser tab.
Search engines use heading structure to understand topic and hierarchy, and clear headings also help you win featured snippets and rank for sub-topics. But the bigger win is usually accessibility and readability: a page with a logical heading outline is easier for everyone to scan and for assistive technology to navigate.
The rules of a good heading structure
- One H1 per page that clearly states the main topic — treat it as the page’s headline.
- Use H2s for the main sections and H3–H6 for nested sub-points, in order.
- Do not skip levels for styling (H2 straight to H4); keep the hierarchy logical, and style with CSS instead.
- Make headings descriptive, so reading only the headings gives a coherent outline of the page.
- Include relevant terms naturally where they fit — headings are a light relevance signal, not a keyword dumping ground.
H1 vs title tag: not the same thing
These are two different elements with two different jobs, and confusing them is common. The title tag is the clickable headline in search results and the browser tab; the H1 is the headline on the page. They can be similar, but they do not have to be identical — the title often adds the brand or a SERP-focused angle, while the H1 speaks to the reader who has already arrived.
A page should have exactly one title tag and one H1. Problems appear when a template outputs no H1, several H1s, or an H1 that contradicts the title — all of which muddy what the page is about.
How to audit your headings
- View the rendered HTML and list the headings in order — many are injected or restyled by JavaScript, so check the DOM, not just the source.
- Confirm there is exactly one H1 and that it matches the page’s actual topic.
- Look for skipped levels and headings used purely for visual size rather than structure.
- Check that a heading-only outline reads as a sensible summary of the page.
- Compare the H1 against the title tag: aligned in meaning, not necessarily identical in wording.
Common heading mistakes
- No H1 at all, or the logo/site name marked up as the H1 on every page.
- Multiple H1s because the template and the content both emit one.
- Using heading tags for visual size (a big H2 for a caption) instead of for structure.
- Skipping levels so the outline is broken for screen readers and crawlers.
- Generic headings ("Introduction", "More") that describe nothing about the section.
How DomainLens checks headings
DomainLens reads the rendered headings and flags a missing H1, multiple H1s, and broken hierarchy, showing you the H1 it found so you can compare it against the title and the page’s intent.
Use the check as a structural signal: the tool tells you the outline is broken; you decide the wording that both describes each section for readers and reinforces what the page should rank for.