• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Using H3 before or instead of an H2...

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Using H3 before or instead of an H2...

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4
        4
        8739
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • genevieveagar
          genevieveagar last edited by

          My designer and I have been having an argument: we have a blog with short, 400 words posts. They have an H1 with nice keywords and a catchy title, and then a few subheadings. I don't like making the subheadings H2, because the font looks way too large in Wordpress, so my designer wants to make them all H4s, so the font looks to be a nicer size.

          Here's my problem with that and why I usually just bold the subheadings: Is it really bad to put a bunch of H4s right under an H1, with not H2's or 3's to separate?

          I'm reading different arguments on the internet about this and gladly welcome more debate and/or case studies. Thank you!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Christy-Correll
            Christy-Correll Staff last edited by

            I agree with Roman and Donald that it's important for SEO to properly mark up your headings and should be fairly easy to change font size with CSS. It's also important to get your heading markup right so that folks who rely on screen readers and other accessibility devices can navigate your site.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • donsilvernail
              donsilvernail last edited by

              Hi genevieveagar,

              So, have your designer make the H2 text smaller. this is a simple css edit or use tiny mce which will give more control over text size. You should be using H2 for main ideas and the keywords in the H2 can help you rank. H3 should be used within the H2 or for less important headings.

              Your WordPress default font sizes should not keep you from using your headings properly. It is a very simple fix.

              Thanks,

              Don Silvernail

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
              • Roman-Delcarmen
                Roman-Delcarmen last edited by

                The hierarchy of your headers depends on the hierarchy of your content, so google use that hierarchy to understand the relevance of your content, so please don't change and destroy your content and your opportunities

                Heading — HTML has six different heading tags — h1, h2, and so on. The h1 is considered the most important tag, and the h6 is the least important. The tags are often formatted from large (or most important) to smallest (or least important).

                Let's take an example, we are going to create an article about
                so let's take "buy a MacBook Pro" as the main keyword and here is your structure

                Note: this just an example base on my experience

                <---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

                H1-All you need to know before to buy a MacBook Pro - Main Keyword Goes Here
                Then you add a description or Introduction Paragraph with the main keyword

                Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation

                H2-the best places to buy a Mac Book Pro (Sub-topic secondary keyword or secondary topic) in this case the main topic is "buy a MacBook Pro" and the second topic is "where to buy it online" as you can see there is a direct relation between your H1-tag and your H2-tag

                Paragraph related to this subtopic (Here some introductory paragraph)

                Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation

                And then here comes a list of possibles website where you can buy a Mac Book Pro (Again, inside your h2 you put a list of h3-tags that are directly related to the h2)

                • H3- Official Website (Paragraph related to this content)
                • H3- Amazon Website (Paragraph related to this content)
                • H3- Ebay Website (Paragraph related to this content)
                • H3- Apple Local Store(Paragraph related to this content)

                <---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

                With this example, you can see that every header follow a structure. So if you have a problem with your font-size or font-weight, you just need to add some custom CSS, in fact, is pretty easy for any developer with a few experience ( Example CSS Headings )

                _What I'm trying to say with this is, first _you _create a structure for your article this include headers, content, lists, call to actions, images and forms, then try to make a layout (nothing complex) and  in this layout you can play with font-size, line-height or font-weight the easiest way to do that is using the _span- tag, with WordPress is easy to do it.

                Why text structure is important for SEO - Yoast Article * How to use headings on your site - Yoast Article* How Links in Headers, Footers, Content, and Navigation Can Impact SEO - Whiteboard Friday

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • srbello

                  Are rel=author and rel=publisher meta tags currently in use?

                  Hello,  Do these meta tags have any current usage? <meta name="author" content="Author Name"><meta name="publisher" content="Publisher Name"> I have also seen this usage linking to a companies Google+ Page:Thank you

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | srbello
                  0
                • DavidC.

                  Do you suggest I use the Yoast or the Google XML sitemap for my blog?

                  I just shut off the All-In-One seo pack plugin for wordpress, and turned on the Yoast plugin. It's great!  So much helpful, seo boosting info! So, in watching a video on how to configure the plugin, it mentions that I should update the sitemap, using the Yoast sitemap I'm afraid to do this, because I'm pretty technologically behind... I see I have a Google XML Sitemaps (by Arne Brachhold) plugin turned on (and have had it for many years). Should I leave this one on? Or would you recommend going through the steps to use the Yoast plugin sitemap? If so, what are the benefits of the Yoast plugin, over the Google XML? Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidC.
                  0
                • awrikat

                  Should I use change of address when moving to subdomain

                  Hi guys So we had a domain that was only for one country, www.example.com 1 year later we decided to go to another country so we will have all the current website under a country subdomain like : ae.example.com we did a 301 redirect
                  Should I perform a change of address action from www.example.com to ae.example.com  ? please help
                  Thanks

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | awrikat
                  0
                • PeteC12

                  Using a US CDN (Cloudflare) for a UK Site. Should I use a UK Based CDN as it says my server is based in USA

                  Hi All, We are a UK Company with Uk customers only and use CloudFlare CND. Our Site is hosted by a UK company with servers here but from looking online and checking where my site is hosted etc etc , some sites are telling me the name of our UK Hosted company and other sites are telling me my site is hosted in San Fran (USA) , where I presume the Cloudflare is based. I know Cloudflare has a couple of servers in the UK it uses but given all my customers are UK based ,I don't want this is affect rankings etc , as I thought it was a ranking benefit to be hosted in the country you are based. Is there any issue with this and should I change or is google clever enough to know so i shouldn't worry. thanks Pet

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC12
                  0
                • PeteC12

                  H3 Tags - Should I Link to my content Articles- ? And do I have to many H3 tags/ Links as it is ?

                  Hello All, On my ecommerce landing pages, I currently have links to my products as H3 Tags. I also have useful guides displayed on the page with links useful articles we have written (they currently go to my news section). I am wondering if I should put those article links as additional H3 tags as well for added seo benefit  or do I have to many tags as it is ?. A link to my Landing Page I am talking about is - http://goo.gl/h838RW Screenshot of my h1-h6 tags - http://imgur.com/hLtX0n7 I enclose screenshot my guides and also of my H1-H6 tags. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks Peter

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC12
                  0
                • SEO_Promenade

                  When is it recommended to use a self referencing rel "canonical"?

                  In what type of a situation is it the best type of practice to use a self referencing rel "canonical" tag? Are there particular practices to be cautious of when using a self referencing  rel "canonical" tag? I see this practice used mainly with larger websites but I can't find any information that really explains when is a good time to make use of this practice for SEO purposes. Appreciate all feedback. Thank you in advance.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO_Promenade
                  0
                • Towelsrus

                  How many time should a keyword be used in the body of text?

                  We employee an outside agency to write content for our website as we do not have the ability in house to write unique and good quality content. They have just sent an article which is around 300 words. I told them the keyword phrases to use. When I got the document there is only 1 instance of the keyword phrase(s) in it. Now there seems to be a conflict here amongst posts I have read and general SEO advise as to how many times it should be present (SEOmoz indicates 4 times for instance), our outside agency says it doesn't matter. Now if I have a page optimised for 2 keywords this starts making things tricky and probably looks keyword stuffed to the reader. Assuming the keywords are present once in meta tags, H1, meta descriptions and alt text, what do people think is best practice taking into account recent panda updates? Thoughts appreciated. Thanks Craig

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus
                  0
                • BenRush

                  How long is it safe to use a 302 redirect?

                  Hi All, Lets assume there is site A and site B, both sites are live on the internet today as standalone businesses, but they sell very similar products. Site B has built up some link equity and will eventually become the domain for site A due to an organisational re-brand. For the time being however site A will remain, but site B needs to disappear temporarily, but not lose the link equity which has been built up against it. My current thinking is to 302 redirect site B to site A such that users and search bots accessing site B will be redirected to site A whilst leaving the link equity that exists against site B fully intact and allowing us to continue to grow it should we wish to. The question is, does anybody have a view on how long it is safe to use a 302 temporary redirect for? i.e., is 8-10 months to long. Thanks, Ben

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BenRush
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.