Sequence of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) important?

[AndreVanKets]

Meaning heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) are a critical part of good on-page optimisation. Fair enough. It helps humans and bots make sense of a page's content.

3 questions regarding implementation of heading tags:

1. Should heading tags appear in sequence in the HTML code. I.e. H1 first, then H2 lower down, etc.?

2. Can the page contain more than one H1 tag?

3. Can the page contain multiple H2, H3, H4 tags?

[Josep1978]

Thanks!

I have some pages that contein h1, h2, h3 and h4. And I have other pages that dont't have h3 but they do have H2 and H4. Is it a seo mistake?

Thanks!

[StalkerB]

Yeah, should be fine.

[TylerAbernethy]

I just listed about 6 H2 tags. That is ok right?

http://www.bestassaultrifles.org/aicw-specs-specifications/

[AndreVanKets]

@vtialscom and @Barry Smith,

Thanks for your input. I agree with you both. Your resources are spot on Barry.

Cheers

[StalkerB]

1. Doesn't matter too much.

2. Yes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM

3. Yes.

Things to maybe think about though is HTML 5 and the

<header>tag for sections. Read - http://html5doctor.com/the-header-element/ - and - http://www.alistapart.com/articles/previewofhtml5

At the moment there will be some accessibility issues with screen readers when using multiple

s but that should get better.

Headers aren't a big ranking factor - http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-five-least-important-ranking-factors - http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-6

A vast majority of the web isn't coded correctly and the above points to it not really mattering, however, it's worth thinking about your structure and still only really using one

if you can.

</header>

[irvingw]

In my experience, the sequence of the H tags didn't matter at all, but if the H1 tag doesn't deserve to be on top of the other heading tags, I would suspect something may be wrong with your page layout.  I don't recommend more than one H1 tag.per page. The H2, H3 and H4 tags are meant for sub headers. If you don't use the header tags as intended, your pages may be flagged as spam, so use cautiously. I have seen so many webmasters unwittingly abusing these tags, like by putting their brand name in a H1 tag on every single page.