What Are H2 Headers and How Should You Use Them?




Time to Read: 2m 10s

importance of h2 headers You probably know that you should have H2 headers on your webpage. H2 headers help organize your on-page content in a way that makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for. But what are they and what is the best way to use them? If you are smart in your use of H2 headers, your website's performance could improve dramatically.

What is an H2 Header?

See that title right above this paragraph? That's an H2 header. An H2 header is a secondary header that you can use to:
  • Emphasize secondary keywords
  • Break up content to make it scannable and easy to read
  • Highlight important pieces of information
  • Saturate content with keywords
  • Add sub headings under your H1 -- this is a good idea for more high-end products or industries

How to Create H2 Headers

It's very easy to add H2 headers to a webpage. Simply enclose the text with <h2> and </h2> tags and you're done! Think of headers as markers that can organize your content into categories. The H1 category dilineates the main category and H2 headers can divide it into subcategories. For further division into subcategories, you can use H3 and H4 headers.

H1 Headers for Your Main Category

H2 Headers for Subcategories Within the Main One

H3 Headers Help You Drill Down Even Further

H4 Headers Are Available if You have Complex, Multi-Level Information on Your Page

The color, size and font for your headers should already be in your site's (or blog's) style sheet, so that when you add the html tag, the header style is automatically applied. Note: when applying header tags, remember that the above heirarchy exists for a reason. Do NOT use an h4 header in place of the h2 just because you like the color of the h4 better. That will confuse search engines and users alike. If you don't like the styles of your headers, fix your style sheet. You can also manually change the color and style of your headers to make them more appealing. The H2 headers in our stylesheet are grey. I make them green so that they pop a little more. You can do the same. Just don't put headers in the wrong place! Add H2s to Your Site -- ASAP! If you don't add H2 headers to your site, you'll miss out on some golden opportunities to make your page the best it can be. Take a look at your content, deconstruct it and put it back together with some H2 headers firmly in place. Need help with that? Let Ecreative lend a hand. Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik via Foter.com / CC BY