Multiple H1 tags on Squarespace blog page?

[rajam]

Hi All,

I use Squarespace and while running my site (https://www.growmassagebusiness.com) through programs am seeing that my blog posts are being seen as one page with multiple H1 tags. I read through the SS help desk and found back in 2015 someone wrote that it's not a bit deal b/c of HTML5 and that the search engines will read each blog post as a sub-page.

I'm not so sure about that and wondering what the experts think?

If that is screwy then I'm considering possibly making each blog post it's own page rather than using their blog posting format.

[rajam]

Thanks Nigel,

That is my line of thinking as well. I'm in the process of separating the pages of the blog into separate pages. Each post is already optimized with a meta description and from my perspective, I think that having them all on one page is muddying the content.

They do claim to have the HTML5 configured correctly but I'm not seeing any of the blog posts ranking anywhere - only the home page of my site.

This blog set up nonsense was the reason I went over to WP - but after dealing with too many system crashes and bloated themes- I realized, if I was a developer then WP would be perfect, but for me and the little time I want to spend on my website- SS is a good choice.

However, their blog set up is confounding!

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Ramjam

I have read a lot about HTML5 - but nowhere is there a direct comparison between the SEO rank in SERPS of an article separated by HTML5 tags vs an Article on a unique page marked up correctly.

My feeling is that given an article in the middle of a multi article single blog page and an article placed on its own page that the latter would rank much higher. However, I have no evidence to show you as there does not appear to be any.

If you still feel that this is a viable route to go then read this:

https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/the-truth-about-multiple-h1-tags-in-the-html5-era--webdesign-16824

Then place an article on the same page with others marked up correctly with HTML5 Headers, Article & H1 tags and one on its own unique page. See which rank higher.

Maybe this is a question we should put directly to Rand and ask him to do a whiteboard Friday on it. Every bit of SEO advice I have ever read has been about creating unique pages with their own defined content so this goes against all of that!

Regards

Nigel

[rajam]

Here's a response from the Squarespace forum, does this make sense?

"...HTML5 has changed this by introducing some new semantic tags that each take an h1 tag (article, section, etc). Squarespace uses these new semantic tags to differentiate content such as blog posts and that's why there are multiple h1 tags per page. Search engines are now optimized to account for this so it's not a problem anymore. Some HTML validators will still throw red flags, so that may be why you are getting that advice."

I'm reading that this is acceptable in HTML5 format but am wondering if search engines actually find it acceptable as well?

[Roman-Delcarmen]

Completly Agree good answer my friend

[rajam]

Thanks guys, that is my thought as well.

I do like Squarespace (I've had experience using SS, Wix, Weebly, and WP) for my business needs. When I had my massage business here in San Diego, I was able to get on the first page of a Google search for my services on a SS site, so I know it can be optimized.

But the blog set up is really funky. The titles of the blog post are automatically set to H1's, so Ceseare, your suggestion wouldn't work because so far I've got around 21 posts and I can't do H2-H21, that would be worthless I think.

They do enable each post to have it's own meta description and tags- but they are showing up all on one page in my Screaming Frog and Ahrefs tools.

Thanks Nigel and Cesare- you guys confirmed that I will go in and just make each blog post its own page. Because each post is already centered around a keyword/phrase.

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Ramjam

It sounds like you have all of your blog posts on one page and that the header for each post is an H1. This is really bad from an SEO point of view as the resulting page is huge and splattered with conflicting keywords. Google would have no idea how to rank the page and for what.

The best way to run your blog is to have a single page for each post - this is the only way that you can properly separate content and to write about properly themed and separate subjects. Then you can add appropriate META tags for each page (Title & Description) and focus on a single focus keywords or very tight selection of contextually similar keywords. Also remember that when you add images to name them the focus keyword to further help with the SEO of the page.

You can still use H1s on that page but keep them keyword focused and don't duplicate content across pages. You will find that each blog page will be listed in Google. Note: ensure that tags are turned off and categories are properly optimized when you do this as this can add duplicate content URLs.

I hope that helps

Regards

Nigel

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[Cesare.Marchetti]

Although its possible to have multiple H1 tags on one page I personally wouldn't do that. There is no reason to make things more complicated than they should. 1 H1 for every post, 1-3 H2 if needed. Thats is. Like this its clear and unambigious.

Another discussion here about that topic: https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/multiple-h1-tags-for-different-section-on-one-webpage-in-html5-website-should-i-have-only-one

Hope this helps.