The Difference Between Title Tags and H1 Tags
One of the valuable features of Acquia Optimize's SEO and webmaster tool is that it shows you places in your website where you are missing title tags or H1 tags (heading tags). We’ve found that a lot of our users mistakenly think that these are the same thing. While there are a lot of similarities between a title tag and a H1 tag there are some important differences and, if you don’t use them properly, it could hurt your rankings.
First things first. What is H1? What is an H1 tag? What is H1 designed for? What is an HTML title tag? How is an H1 tag different from an HTML title tag? What exactly is it that makes them different?
Let’s take a look.
What's the difference?
So, what exactly is an HTML title tag? What is a H1 HTML tag? How are they connected and how are they different? Well, depending on the webpage, you will find effective title tag examples that vary wildly from their corresponding h1 HTML tag, and title tag examples that are just as effective while being quite identical.
In broad terms, while a h1 tag and a HTML title tag can each be defined as being headers, the key difference between them can be thought of as being a little bit like the difference between providing a website title vs article title. While both things are closely related, they both also serve their own distinct purpose. When creating a website title vs article title, there are a few basic things that must be assessed in order to determine whether each adequately serves their purpose. The same applies when assessing whether a separate h1 tag and HTML title tag are required for any given webpage.
In HTML terms, a title tag is expressed as "title" and the H1 HTML tag is expressed as "h1". Both serve as titles to describe what your webpage is about.
Because both the title tag and the H1 HTML tag share the same broader purpose, it is easy to understand why people confuse them. It is further confused by the fact that a lot of content management systems are set up to automatically match your title tags and H1 tags (and URL too). But keep in mind that content management systems are set up with the novice user in mind, and not for people who need to pay attention to the finer details of SEO so they can rank in competitive niches.
The main difference between title tags and H1 tags is where they appear:
- Title tags: These are what show up in search engines. It is the hyperlink that searchers will click on. It also shows up in the title bar at the top of the web browser, and is the default title used when someone bookmarks the page. Title Tags do not appear on the actual webpage.
- H1 tags: This is what users will see on your webpage. It is in large text and acts as a title for the page. H1 tags usually do not appear in search engines.
SEO benefits
Including relevant title and H1 tags with keywords is incredibly important for SEO because it helps Google understand what your website is about. It also helps Google understand what is most important on that page.
Where a lot of people go wrong is omitting title tags on their pages, or using generic tags which don’t actually describe what the specific webpage is about. For example, say you use an H1 tag such as: "For where your business needs to be." How is Google supposed to figure out what the website is about without any relevant information in the title or header of the page?
User experience benefits
When we talk about website optimization, we usually talk about “what Google likes.” But bear in mind that all of Google’s search engine algorithms were created with user experience in mind. If you focus on providing a good user experience, then you can bet your site will be optimized.
In the example above, it isn’t just the Google bots that would be confused by the page. Imagine if you came across that listing in a search result. The title tag gives you absolutely no clue as to what the webpage is about. Searchers don’t like wasting time, so they probably aren’t going to click on it. Even if they do take the risk and click on it, the header (H1 tag) on the page itself needs to reassure users that they’ve arrived at the right spot, too. Rather than spending a lot of time clicking about the webpage to determine what it is about, they are probably just going to go back to the search results and choose another page which clearly expresses that it meets their needs.
We can sum up the role of title tag and H1 tag for user experience in this way:
- Title tag: ensures searchers that they have found a relevant page which will meet their needs
- H1 tag: Introduces page content and reassures them that it will meet their needs.
Should they be different?
There is a lot of debate as to whether you need to write unique info for your title tag and H1 tag. However, the general consensus amongst experts (including Rand Fishkin of Moz) is that it isn’t dangerous to have your title tag be the same as your H1 tag.
Remember that a lot of content management systems by default set the title of the page as the title tag and H1 tag. If the tags are very relevant, then this probably isn’t going to be a bad thing and may even help create a continuity throughout the user experience.
However, in certain situations, it might be very helpful to use different title tags and H1 tags. Don’t do it just for the sake of getting in more keywords or because you think it will help SEO. Always write tags to reassure the user that they have found the right content.
Key takeaways
So, what is an H1 tag and how do they differ from title tags? At the end of the day, H1 tags and title tags both exist to serve the needs of an individual webpage. Due to their nature, some webpages will require H1 tags and title tags that are quite distinct, while other web pages will be perfectly well served by having identical H1 tags and title tags.
Ask yourself: do the title tags and H1 tags for all of your web pages help to describe the topic of content available on your website? If the answer is yes then the same H1 tags and title tags can most likely be leveraged without issue. So, while it can be perfectly fine to have a H1 tag and a title tag that are the same, this will always depend on the particularities of the page itself.
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