SEO H1 Tags Best Practices

Every day, non-digital methods of searching and finding information are becoming more outdated. Although we still have newspapers, books and other forms of traditional media, the majority of people reach for their phones or a computer to surf the net, using powerful search engines like Google to find an answer to their questions.

With the increase in traffic, it’s imperative to care about your website ranking on search engines. Your ranking can be found with several tools on the internet such as Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush. Here at Choquer, we offer clients a complimentary website audit as well. 

Website Ranking And Search Engine Growth

The Google search engine is used internationally by over 75% of all users on desktops. This proves that billions of people worldwide are using search engines, making businesses reliant on their site’s content quality to rank on Google. 

As expected, the majority of internet users choose sites that appear on the first page of the search engine results pages (or SERPs). These results are generated via specific keywords the user inputs. Note that the chances of users finding your site reduce as you sit further down along the SERPs. 

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Website Ranking & Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essentially the complex inner workings of website ranking. Having solid SEO conveys a better-performing website organically, which means less spending on paid Google or marketing ads. 

Though very simple on the surface, businesses invest thousands of dollars and countless hours into ensuring superior SEO over their competitors. SEO is a long and complex process for medium to long-term business results. Although there’s no silver bullet solution, a multi-faceted approach using the following methods does improve SEO and website ranking over time:

• Website Content: Ask yourself how useful is your website content to visitors? Having poor web content will negatively affect your website ranking. Texts like website copy and blog posts should be targeted toward users on your site, mentioning certain keywords naturally in the text. 

• Technical Onsite Optimization: This addresses processes which enable Google’s bots to effectively crawl and index your website. Aspects such as useless code, slow website speed, and a high bounce rate due to poor content changes will hinder your website ranking. 
• Link Building: Acquiring links for your website via backlinks from other sites and your internal linking helps improve your website ranking on SERPs. Note that the quality of the links is more important than the quantity. Ensure the links relate to the content on your pages for better SEO.

If you’re curious to learn more, we have posted another recent blog regarding five tactics to improve your website’s SEO.

Benefits of Higher Website Ranking

It’s reported that the top 3 websites on SERPs share 61% of the traffic for a particular search query. The first placed website receives a whopping 42% of traffic, the second site 11%, and the third 8%. If your website is on page 7, you’re missing 90% of search traffic compared to being in a top listing. 

If you work in marketing, you know that inbound leads from organic results cost virtually nothing. Top SERP positions will significantly reduce advertising costs for ads such as pay per click. The only caveat is that it’s an upfront investment that won’t see a return immediately. Your small business can compete by having proper keyword research. For example, your website is more likely to rank for mid to long key phrases which are highly specific and targeted, compared to generic keywords like “shoes”, “computers” or “cars”. 

Having a higher website ranking also improves your company’s image and authenticity. Your audience will see your business as authoritative and genuine if it’s in the top 10 search results. This will give your business a psychological edge over your competitors and drive more qualified traffic to your website. 

We Help to Improve Website Ranking

Website ranking and SEO is a precarious and time-consuming endeavour for all business owners to grasp. This is exactly why our team at Choquer Creative offers SEO solutions from design, development and content to improve your website ranking in Google results. 

Does your website need an SEO overhaul? Don’t hesitate to check our packages and reach out to us so we can help your business thrive online.

Are 302 Redirects Bad for SEO?

The short answer to this is, not really. First, let’s make the difference between 302 redirects and 301 redirects. Redirects are simply a way to send both users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested. 

302 redirects are temporary redirects. These redirects are perfect for when you’re redesigning your website or adding new webpages. This lets Google know that the original page remains indexed in Google and no value (link equity) is transferred to the new, temporary URL because Google knows this is just temporary. Hence, when a redirect is used properly, your SEO remains unbothered and you will retain any rankings, traffic value, and authority that page might have.

Where problems tend to arise is when people don’t know the difference between a 302 and a 301. 301 redirects, simply put, are permanent redirects. It sends the message to search engines, letting them know that your website or webpage has been moved permanently. This would be around a year or longer. After a year, check to see if people are still being redirected to your site. If they are, figure out where they’re coming from and try to fix the source before you cancel the redirect. 

For example, people who use this type of redirect often purchase other, slightly different domains that they use to redirect users to their primary domain. These slight domain variations include misspellings and variations of a brand or other relevant domains with high “Domain Authority”.

PRO TIP: Use a 301 redirect when establishing which domain is your default site: “www.yourbiz.com” or just “yourbiz.com”. In most search queries for a website, people tend to omit the “www” when typing out website names. Hence, a permanent redirect there would guarantee they end up on your site anyway.

Are H1 Tags Important for SEO

The golden rule of blog content management is structuring content. Blogs with H1 Tags are easily identifiable by Google and by users alike. Adding structure to long blocks of text, especially long-form content can not only make this easier to read, but it can also improve your search ranking and how Google indexes your content. So yes, although it isn’t the absolute best thing you can do for your SEO, it is still essential. 

CONTENT PRO TIPS:

• Hire professional writers who will help you produce professional, industry-standard documents with regard to your field of work, market, or niche.
• Acquire backlinks from high authority domains.
• Update content and photos on your website.
• Get as many reviews on Google as possible. Think about incentivizing your customers to leave a positive review.
• Get a Wikipedia page and showcase your expertise to Google.

Are iFrames Bad for SEO

If you’re not aware already, an iframe is simply a frame in a frame. This tool allows you to insert content from other sources onto your webpage. An iFrame is a powerful element if you want more engagement on your site. It is entirely possible that when used correctly, they can contribute to better SEO. for your visitors. Ideally, an iFrame should be part of the content that you make, not as an integral part of your website. Beware that using iFrames excessively can increase load times. So tread with caution!‍

Isn’t it a security threat?‍

Some folks say it could be a security risk, but it is perfectly safe to use now. These attacks have reduced over the years and it only takes a bit of precaution to rid your worries. Ensure you pay attention to your sources while adding an iFrame and avoid linking from an untrusted website. The apprehension stems from the surge of iFrame code injection attacks back in 2008. ABC News was a victim among many others! The attack would redirect visitors to a malicious site, then install a virus to the visitors’ PC or attempt to steal sensitive information. Hence, is not recommended to include iFrame as an integral part of your website. But we use iframes all the time.

Do Images Help SEO

Images and video content, when optimized can bring in much more traffic than you think. So yes, Images do help SEO, and here’s how. You can also check out our extensive guide to optimizing the images on your website here.

Google can identify text extremely well, but it is still a bit iffy in terms of images. So you must make sure your image nomenclature is intact and easy to understand. Alternative text, commonly known as alt tags gives search engines a basic idea of what each image is about. Therefore allowing search engines to index images accordingly. However, they are not visible to your average visitor. Alternative text is a big win for website accessibility since it also helps visually impaired visitors navigate your site with audio-based software. This can be a godsend in terms of SEO. The more accessible your site is, the higher the ranking and the more traffic your site will bring in.

PRO TIP: 

• Google indexes SVGs, the same way it does PNGs and JPGs, so you don’t have to worry about SVGs hindering your SEO efforts.
• For the sake of faster load times, SVGs can be your trump card since they are traditionally (not always) smaller in file size than PNGs or JPGs.

Do Keywords Help SEO

Yes, yes, and yes. Content is king and if your content had all the relevant keywords in place, rest assured, your website will have a lot more eyes on them than you think. This does not happen overnight though. Consistent, high-quality blogs that have been optimized for their respective content can gradually help your visibility. Keywords are one of the main elements of SEO. Simply put, you need to study and understand how people are looking for desired products, services, or information that you can offer. This is keyword analysis. There’s a myriad of tools out there to help with keyword analysis and research such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, Keywords Everywhere etc.

The idea is to make it easy for an audience to find you as opposed to landing on one of the countless other websites on the internet.

PRO TIP: 

• Google recognizes content written by a person and a bot and indexes them accordingly. So make sure you do not keyword stuff or have atrociously repetitive metadata.
• Make sure the Alt Text for images on your site have relevant keywords in place to make them identifiable to Google.

Does Linking to Other Sites Improve SEO

Internal and external linking is one of the cornerstones of SEO. Outbound linking to relevant, informative sites, is a great way to provide important clues about the relevance of your page to search engines. Getting good backlinks (inbound links)from a high authority domain is a sure shot to more eyes on your pages too. Ultimately, search engines in general, want users to find the information/content they are looking for. So, when you include links to helpful content, you are doing them a favor.

The more links a page receives from other sources, the more popular it appears. This sends positive signals to search engines and can boost a page's rank in search results, meaning that more searchers will click and view the content.

How Do You Measure SEO Success

Google Analytics will be your best friend during the process. Remember that measuring SEO success requires analyzing multiple sets of data and using relevant metrics to understand engagement on your site. 

Here’s a quick overview of our Recommended FREE SEO tools:

1. Google Analytics
2. Website Grader 
3. Moz Open Site Explorer (Free Version)

Recommended Premium Tools:

1. SEMRush
2. Yoast SEO (Ideal for WordPress)
3. Ahrefs.com
4. KWFinder (Ideal for keyword analysis for blogs)

Contact us today to find out how we can help your website's SEO!