HOW LONG SHOULD OPTIMIZED H1 HEADINGS BE?

Our hypothesis is that the specificity and context provided by H1 headings on a webpage significantly influence its search engine rankings, particularly in the wake of Google’s algorithm updates. We theorized that pages with broad, single-term H1 headings (“Chicago Roofing”) suffer in rankings due to a lack of content substance and context clarity, which Google’s algorithms interpret as under-optimization. Conversely, we posited that pages utilizing long-tail, descriptive H1 headings (“kutdhknfdc and other things to do in Hanover PA”) demonstrate improved rankings as these headings offer more context and detail, allowing Google’s algorithms to better understand and categorize the page’s content. This hypothesis was further supported by our observation that changing a page’s H1 from a simple keyword to a more descriptive, long-tail phrase resulted in an initial ranking improvement, suggesting that Google’s algorithms favor pages that provide clearer, more detailed headings. Through single variable split testing of similar pages with different H1 strategies and observing the impact on their rankings before and after a Google core update, we aim to confirm the importance of optimized, context-rich headings in achieving and maintaining higher search engine rankings.

During a previous update, we noticed some test sites where we were testing highly targeted terms seemed to get hit. These were poorly optimized pages with very little content – essentially only optimized for certain terms needed to test their potential.

The strongest correlation we saw between these pages and our actual sites was “broad H1s”. We used a very short, broad term for our H1 tag, like “Chicago Roofing”, then optimized the rest of the page with broad headings like “Chicago Roofing contractor” and “Chicago Roofing replacement.” 

We suspected the under-optimized heading caused drops in our rankings. After analyzing, we hypothesized Google couldn’t figure out the substance of the content from just a simple “keyword heading”. 

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