How does Google treat Header tags now? H1s, H2s and H3s. What happens if you skip the H2?

[brianflannery]

The theme I am using now means each page on my is currently set up like this:

h1> keyword phrase

keyword phrase

The new theme I want to use is different

h1> keyword phrase

Will changing the theme have a negative effect on the rankings due to losing the h2 on each page?

[HashtagHustler]

Brian,

I personally come from a slightly different stand point; relax. When changing themes these days I personally think that the Meta data is on the lower end of your concerns. Matt Cutts said even said in a video that if you have many pages that are missing H1, H2 etc. it isn't even worth your time to go back and add them.

RobertFisher of DrumBeat marketing is an avid poster on this forum often says that SEO is a lot more than just ranking. I don't want to speak for him but from what I have gathered he uses a lot of the meta data has a hook, more than just a ranking feature.

Combining the two pieces of information I stated, I try not to concern myself with H1,H2 as far as ranking, I view it like the text on a billboard or the marketing behind an advertisement. This is where the lines of SEO and Marketing begin to get blurred in my opinion. Use your meta data to sell your website and get the individual to click on the search result. Rankings will follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBTBEfd7z_Y <-- Matt Cutts video on meta Data

[BruceA]

Hi Brian

Do a search on here for h1, this was covered in a topic in the last few days.  In essence never miss a tag, or search engines will stop at the gap and will not jump from h1 to h3.  Change H3 to h2, so that  all are sequential. h1. h2. h3 etc

Hope that helps

Bruce

[DennisSeymour]

You need to test it and see what happens. Most of the times I've done this, nothing really happened. As long as everything is pretty much intact and the URL didnt change