Ekkkk! its got codey bits – Don’t run!

Ok so,  what are H1, H2 & H3 headings and Why do you need to know?

H1, H2 & H3 are simply a way of categorising the headings on your pages and blog posts.

They will do two things:

1. From a design point of view, in setting these up you can specify different sizes, different colours, and different weights bold, italic etc. for each of the settings. In Microsoft word they have a similar thing known as styles which you might be familiar with. In essence, you can specify all the H1 headings to be one way and all the H2 headings to be something else. This is an advantage from a visual point of view cause it means the styling will be consistent across all areas of your site, it will also save time as you don’t have to go in and set this up each time you want to use a particular style.

1. The second part of this is areas of importance for each of the headings.  The rule of thumb is that your most important bit of information set on your page such as your page title is always set as H1, then subheadings and categories flow down from that as H2, H3. Generally, these sizes are different as you go down the line but the important thing here is from a content view,  is the ranking of importance of each of the headings. Google will be looking for bits of content which are coded as this H1, H2, H3 headings and will make a note that this page/bit of content is important as opposed to the paragraphs of text on your page.  Therefore,  when you are creating your content or when you / your designer start to put your page together its important that key bits of  message, content, services should be selected as one of these headings so as to make sure you are optimising and categorising your site giving it the best chance you can being found in Google. Its also a good way to structure for visitors to your site which bits are important particularly if people are “skimming” your site and just checking out what you are about.

Now you know the why we get to the how do you do this?

It obviously depends on how your website is built as to the exact steps of how you do this. A step before this is, when you create your content you should have this mind as to which parts of the content CAN be coded under this structure. Each page should have at least 1 heading coded as H1 which is separate from the main paragraph of text. Try to use your key phrases in this heading.

Once your content is written In wordpress it is simply a matter of selecting/highlighting the text in your editor (just like you would if you were making a section Bold in Word) and choose from the drop-down list above the editing box either H1, H2, or H3 and SAVE the page you are done.

For example of my headings here on this site.

This is a H1 heading

This is a H2 heading

This is a H3 heading

There is also a H4 if you need it 🙂

I hope this explains abit about these headings and why you need it 🙂