This search engine optimization (SEO) guide answers the question, “why is H2 tag important for SEO?”
Below, you’ll find out why the H2 tag matters for a website’s search engine rankings and get a list of the top benefits of H2 tags in SEO.
There’s also a section with additional resources that explain more about the fundamentals of H2 header tags to help you create the most effective search engine optimization strategy.
Table of Contents
Why Is H2 Tag Important for SEO?
The H2 tag is important for SEO because it allows search engine crawlers to understand the page structure and intent of the content. Search engines analyze the text within the H2 tags to understand the subtopics of the page to index and rank it for relevant queries.
Benefits of H2 Tag In SEO
1. H2 Tag Is a Ranking Factor
The top benefit of the H2 tag is that it’s a ranking factor for SEO. As a high-level header, the H2 tag is one of the main HTML elements that search engine crawlers check for keywords that match relevant search queries.
Therefore, making sure that you’re using H2 tags correctly and optimizing them to their fullest can help enhance the performance of your web page’s ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
2. H2 Tag Defines the Subtopics
H2 tags are also important because they define the subtopics for the content. This helps both users and search engines to better understand the content structure of the web page and quickly find the key information that outlines each subsection.
3. H2 Tag Improves Crawlability
Another advantage of the H2 tag is that it helps search engine crawlers understand the information hierarchy for proper indexing and ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Without H2 subheaders in the HTML code, it can be difficult for a crawler to understand the main points of the web page because the subsections are not broken up by second-level headings <h2>. Instead, the content would just be a wall of text without any formalized structure for analysis.
4. H2 Tag Improves the User Experience
One of the best benefits of the H2 tag is that it improves the user experience for your website, which is a factor that search engine algorithms measure in their ranking systems.
Subheadings improve the readability and accessibility of the content by making it easy to scan visually and navigate with screen readers. Therefore, if you set up proper H2 tags on the page, you’ll likely see an increase in rankings compared to a page without H2 subheadings or poor use of this HTML element.
5. H2 Tag Generates Sitelinks
Another importance of H2 tags is that they can generate Sitelinks for your website listing in the SERPs. Sitelinks are special links that appear beneath the search result on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing that lead users to particular sections of the content without having to click on the main result.
The Sitelinks feature gives your web pages more visibility in the SERPs and helps to increase click-through rates (CTR) from organic search traffic.
Below is an example of Sitelinks for a web page on the SEO Chatter website:
To get Sitelinks like this for your website, you need to have at least three H2 subheadings on the page and include a table of contents at the top of the page with anchor tags (or anchor links) that link to the H2 subheadings throughout the page.
You can use a free table of contents plugin in WordPress to have this automatically set up for every page on your site or code it by hand in the HTML source to add anchor links to the H2 subheaders.
After setup is complete, Google and other search engines will consider the H2 tags to be displayed as Sitelinks under your web page listing. Placement is not guaranteed but a proper setup like this is important to make it more likely to happen.
Learn More About H2 Tags
The links below explain more about the H2 tag and how to use it correctly for better search engine optimization. Use these resources to expand your knowledge on the subject.
H2 Tag Is Important for SEO Summary
I hope you enjoyed this guide answering the question about why is H2 tag important for SEO.
As you discovered, the H2 tag matters because it allows search engine crawlers to understand the page structure and intent of the content to properly index and rank the web page for relevant queries. The benefits of H2 tags in SEO also include defining the subtopics for the page, improving crawlability, enhancing the user experience, and generating additional SERP listing features like Sitelinks.
