Remove the SEO suggestion limiting a page to a single H1 tag

[Jnix284]

Who: marketers everywhere

Goal: eliminate unnecessary confusion surrounding H1 tag use on pages

Value: save time and reduce frustration

The built-in SEO optimization tools for the page editor recommends that the page have a single H1 tag.

Please consider changing this to read "Page has at least one H1 tag" and update the scoring accordingly.

Google has expressed directly that there is no limit to the number of H1 tags on a page, and that heading tags should be used in a way that makes the most sense for the content and site visitor.

H1 tag does have more importance than H2, etc., but it is not limited according to John Mueller with Google.

Reference: Search Engine Journal

The rules of SEO are constantly changing and it is important that HubSpot lead the way to eliminate confusion and misinformation.

[Jnix284]

Hi all! I'm Amanda, the product manager for our SEO tools. Thank you for submitting this and linking the quote from John Mueller. I will look into this further and see if we can add updating this rec into our backlog

[danmoyle]

Thanks for bringing this up @Jnix284 - seems like a pretty straightforward ask as Google has updated its recommendations. 

[a_schumacher]

Hi all! I'm Amanda, the product manager for our SEO tools. Thank you for submitting this and linking the quote from John Mueller. I will look into this further and see if we can add updating this rec into our backlog

[Jnix284]

Thank you for the update @a_schumacher and for adding it to the backlog 🙌

[aweissppg]

Hi @Jnix284 &  @a_schumacher,

It is true that in the HTML standard that there can be multiple H1s, as long as an H1 is not nested under subheadings (H2, H3, so forth). There are also many instances where Googlers like John Mueller have indicated that errors in heading nesting isn't necessarily a SEO killer, and there is some error identification and correction to ensure that helpful content can still rank well.

However, the WCAG and other similar accessibility guidances still recommend having only one H1, which should typically be the title of the page (doesn't have to match the title element). This is because those who use screen readers and other assistive technologies do indeed use headings for navigational purposes.

I think a better feature/improvement is check if there is at minimum one H1 element AND if there are multiple H1 elements, it should check they are not nested within other heading elements. That would satisfy the HTML standard and ensure accessibility is achieved.

[Jnix284]

Thank you @aweissppg, I agree that more accessibility guidelines should be incorporated into the recommendations - and hierarchy of heading tags (not nesting or skipping) is a more important callout. When I wrote this 3 years ago, the announcement about multiple H1 tags caused a major disruption in the SEO community; there's always been confusion among non-technical users between the difference of the Title tag and H1 tag (why they can be different) and it is more common that a user will select an H1 heading as a styling element (they want to leverage the larger font size further on the page) and often fail to follow a hierarchy at all.

This is from HubSpot's blog on header tags which is linked from the recommendation about a single H1:

"HTML supports up to six header tags (H1-H6) for you to use to structure your page as needed. They can be stylized visually according to your brand, and with the exception of the H1, you can have as many of these tags on a page as you want. "

It currently lists the reason for a single H1 tag as:

"A single H1 tag makes it easier for search engines and readers to understand your content. Your page has 1 H1 tag(s)."

Perhaps clarifying to say:

"A single H1 tag makes it easier for search engines and screen readers to understand your content. Your page has 1 H1 tag(s)."

It would be more inclusive of SEO and Accessibilty recommendations.

I'm not opposed to keeping the recommendation for a single H1 tag, but think it would more valuable to add an additional check and second recommendation that reviews the hierarchy of all heading tags (i.e. making sure no headings are skipped, such as going from H1 to H3 instead of H1 to H2 to H3) which would provide a more comprehensive approach to the use of header tags. 

The larger opportunity seems to be changing the SEO optimization tool to focus on SEO and Accessibility to ensure the page is optimized for both. Currently the only other mention of accessibility is in the Alt Tag recommendation description:

"Alt text helps search engines and visually impaired users understand what your image is about. The exceptions are decorative images (bullets, borders, etc), which should have a blank alt text attribute to aid screen readers."

For example, it would be great if there was also a check for color contrast (e.g. heading color vs heading background color).