A logical heading structure

Most visitors don't read a page from top to bottom; they scan. Their eyes jump from heading to heading, looking for the part that answers their question. Search engines do something similar: headings tell them which topics a page covers and how they relate to each other. That makes a logical heading structure one of the simplest and most effective SEO measures.

What does a good structure look like?

• One H1 per page. That's the main title, summarising the topic of the whole page.
• H2 for the main sections. Think of chapters in a book.
• H3 for parts within an H2. Don't skip levels: no H4 directly under an H2.
• Headings that say something. "How much does a new website cost?" is stronger than "Prices".
• Headings aren't styling. If you just want text bigger or bold, don't use a heading.

How it works in Obelisk

In Obelisk you set the level of each heading separately from how large it looks. A heading can look small and still be an H2, or large and still be an H3. Ask the assistant to write a page or article and it will put the headings in the right order. Unsure about an existing page? Ask: "Check the heading structure of this page."

For long articles, place the table of contents block at the top. It reads the headings automatically and turns them into a clickable table of contents. A messy heading structure shows up there immediately, which makes it a handy check. For articles you manage as records, such as a blog, you build the headings into the text itself; see also SEO for blog articles.

A concrete example

An installation company had a services page with "Welcome" as the H1 and five more headings below it that were all H1s, purely because they needed to be large. Google couldn't tell what the page was about. After the fix, the H1 reads "Heat pump installation in Overijssel", with H2s such as "Which heat pump suits your home?", "What does a heat pump cost?" and "Applying for a subsidy". Visitors now understand the page at a glance, and it matches the questions people ask in Google far better.

Headings and search questions

Feel free to phrase subheadings as the question your reader has. Google regularly shows a snippet of text directly below such a heading as an answer in the search results. Combine this with an FAQ block for short questions, which automatically adds structured data.

Common mistakes

Multiple H1s on one page, single-word headings, skipping levels and stuffing headings with keywords. Keep it simple: if the headings together form a logical table of contents, you're on the right track.