H1 Question - Opinions?

[Chase Billow]

I forget where I read a good article about this or I'd post the link (I will if/when I find it), but I'm sure you've seen cases where a site's H1 is displayed in place of the site Title in the Local Maps. Apparently this happens when the H1 description is appropriate to the query, bla bla.

I'm wondering:

1) If any of you have seen a secondary H1 pulled for this "modified" title AND

2) If any of you have noticed that the h1 needs to be among the first bit of content on the page (in code order) or if it's ok for the h1 to be somewhere later in the code - even at the bottom of the page?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Chase from what I've seen it's not even the H1 always that get pulled and shows up. I've even seen stuff like "Call Mary for an Appointment" show up as the listing title in SERPS and that was not even in an H, just plain text. So basically she just pulls whatever the heck she wants sometimes I think.

1) If any of you have seen a secondary H1 pulled for this "modified" title
Do you mean a 2nd H1? Because that should never be done. There should only be 1.

2) Good design and maybe even SEO best practices say H tags should be natural. Meaning H1 at top for heading, then H2, 3 for lower sub heads.

Not sure if an H1 low on page hurts.

But I can tell you that for years I've PREFERRED H3 and sometimes think H3s even rank higher. Back when H1 1st became the hot thing and everyone started doing it I decided Google could start de-emphasizing it in importance, so just started testing with H3 and it always has worked well for me. (I have a site that ranks #1 out of 108 MILLION competing)

So you could do a normal H1 at top of page with whatever the page title would be. Then your main keyphrase if it does not work well on top, at the bottom in an H3???

 

[Chase Billow]

Thanks Linda.

When you've seen her pull random lines of text (<meta charset="utf-8">Call Mary for an Appointment), was that just a random one-timer or have you seen that enough times to be "a thing"? And did you notice it was pulled from some of the first text on the page?

Interesting about the H3s. Hmmm

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ya sometime really smart "under" optimization works well.

I cited some weird examples back when she 1st started over-writing title tags. I've even seen reports of her using weird stuff like "register here", that's nowhere on the site. Most of what I've seen is kinda random and flukey. Not enough to be a 'thing'.

But as far as special "things" that Google loves for local, I have some secret sauce stuff that works amazingly well. Too good to put out there in forums for every Tom, Dick and Spammer to read though, cuz if it caught on some would abuse it, then it wouldn't work any more.

 

[Chase Billow]

Haha, alright thanks again Linda

 

[Linda Buquet]

I'll start trying to document more of the unique and weird stuff I see out in the wild or in the G forums to see if we can spot any patterns or "things".

 

[Nick.SEOSpark]

Ya sometime really smart "under" optimization works well.

I cited some weird examples back when she 1st started over-writing title tags. I've even seen reports of her using weird stuff like "register here", that's nowhere on the site. Most of what I've seen is kinda random and flukey. Not enough to be a 'thing'.

But as far as special "things" that Google loves for local, I have some secret sauce stuff that works amazingly well. Too good to put out there in forums for every Tom, Dick and Spammer to read though, cuz if it caught on some would abuse it, then it wouldn't work any more.

Yeah, I've recently learnt the secret sauce tricks from Linda in training and haven't looked back. It's definitely knowledge worth acquiring! Really helped me with all my clients.

 

[Linda Buquet]

So great to hear Nick! Glad your clients are benefiting!

Here's a good related post I'd somehow missed and just discovered from Matt McGee.
(I mean it's about title tags not H1 but still ties in a little.)

Title Tags: Rethinking the Conventional Wisdom

 

[Linda Buquet]

When you've seen her pull random lines of text (<meta charset="utf-8">Call Mary for an Appointment), was that just a random one-timer or have you seen that enough times to be "a thing"? And did you notice it was pulled from some of the first text on the page?

OK Chase here's a new example I just found based on a G forum thread problem I was looking at.

Google SearchPrincess Party Los Angeles

A listing for me anyway is...
Call us at (310) 916-9285 (title tag/name replaced)
site: enchantedpartytales.com

That phrase is not in H1 or H anything.