Our last HTML Basics for SEO Writers tutorial covered how to manipulate text, add links and display images (if you want to learn that instead, click here). This tutorial will cover headings: what they are, how it can improve your article’s SEO factor, and how to use them effectively.

Ready? Now let’s get geeky.

So What the Heck are Headings?

In HTML speak, heading is just a fancy way to say “title” or “subtitle”. It’s the title you insert before a section (or article) to tell readers what they should expect ahead of time.

For example, the name of this section is What the Heck are Headings. I used the code <h3> (it basically mean “Heading 3″) to make the keywords–in this case, “headings”–more prominent. Since I’m only going to discuss the meaning of headings in this section, it seemed appropriate to name it What the Heck are Headings instead of “Headings are Pretty Cool” or “What Headings Can Teach You About Life”.

Now Why Headings are Really Important

Headings aren’t just used to tell readers what they should expect ahead of time. It actually increases your article’s SEO factor, and really improves readability.

Headings serve three distinct purposes:

• It helps separate sections, improving readability. It acts as a guide for readers to follow as they scan this article (readers rarely commit to reading; they prefer to scan instead for relevant information).
• It improves your article’s SEO. The heading tag is a way of telling search engines “This is an outline of my article–read it and rank my article accordingly!”
• Keywords (or keyphrases) included inside heading tags gain more prominence, improving keyword optimization. And that’s always a good thing.

Now that we know its importance, let’s learn how to set it up to maximize your article’s SEO factor.

Heading Codes: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6

There are six types of heading codes you should be aware of, called H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. H1 is reserved for main titles, and is given more prominence over other heading codes in SEO. H2 and H3 are reserved for subtitles–they still receive prominence in search engines, but not as much as H1. H4, H5, and H6 are reserved for smaller sections, and some people argue they don’t receive any prominence by search engines. Most writers don’t use it when they format their article.

Now this is important. For SEO purposes, stick with the H1 tags for titles, and use H2 and H3 for each major section. This ensures all of the keywords included between these tags get noticed by search engines.

Here’s the HTML for each heading code:

H1: <h1>Witty text here</h1>
H2: <h2>I’m even funnier!</h2>
H3: <h3>I’m small and delightful!</h3>

Remember to insert a slash before the “h” to stop the code. If you don’t, the entire code will apply to your entire article. Used correctly, the above example will look like this:

Witty text here!

I’m even funnier!

I’m small and delightful!

Pretty cool, huh? Be careful not to abuse it, though. If your article is littered with heading tags, you’re only going to make your article look less attractive–and that applies to search engines and your human readers.

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You may also want to download the HTML Basics for SEO Writers: The Heading printable cheat sheet. It’s in PDF form and summarizes these codes in an even easier-to-learn format. Click the image to begin downloading.