Headings are important for both users and search engines. They are usually used to highlight the text and reveal the main idea of what the following text section or paragraph is. Also, another important role of headings is to show the connection path on the entire text and how all ideas are arranged.

In this article, we will talk about how headings contribute to a better ranking on search engines and why you should use them:

#1 Why You Should Use Headings

As mentioned above, headings should help readers go thru the website and make them have a better understanding of what the text is about. This is one of the reasons why headings are placed before a paragraph or a text section.

Just like readers, crawlers also scan the text and get the same information from it, marking what part of the text means and how the content is connected to each other. Making text sections and/or paragraphs without headings will mess the entire content and will confuse the reader as well as the search engines

Additionally, there are two important things to remember when it comes to headers and paragraphs:

• The heading should contain the essential information about what the paragraph is
• The paragraph should be adjusted and structured according to the headings

This means that the way ideas and thoughts are arranged inside the paragraphs should correspond to what the heading sounds like

#2 Headings and accessibility

Headings are important for better accessibility as well. It helps people that are not able to read from the screen easier to get the main ideas about what the entire content is about. And also, due to the fact that headings are in HTML, it will facilitate the screen reader to speak out loud the content and formulate better the content.

In consequence, the screen reader helps people with limited visual possibilities to have an idea if it worths reading the article or not. Moreover, the screen readers, e-readers, and all types of similar devices have the capability to jump from one heading to another.

#3 Headings and SEO

The benefits of using headings in your text articles are mostly indirect, but nonetheless, they have a huge impact overall. First of all, making the content readable and user friendly is what search engines really like and this helps the content to rank higher using headings. Also here, when using the headings correctly you can prevent users from leaving the page without any information. As an impact, you will be able to reduce the website’s bounce rate and at the same time increase the chances of acquiring new users that will find the same useful information.

Besides, when placing headings, a good idea is to use search intent insights, and find out what users usually search for, and smartly insert in headings similar information

Taking into account these remarks regarding headings, you will definitely pay more attention to them and start implementing them accordingly for better website performance and ranking.