This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
SEO
Why does every page need exactly one H1 heading?
Every page needs exactly one H1 heading, because H1 carries the page's one key statement — the way a newspaper article has exactly one headline. Search engines read the H1 to understand the page's topic, and blind users jump straight to it with their screen reader. If the H1 is missing, or there are several, the page's statement becomes blurred.
H1 is your page's headline
Headings on a website have invisible rank levels from H1 to H6. H1 is the top level: the main heading that names the topic of the whole page. On a joiner's services page, that might be "Custom furniture from Graz". What matters: the rank sits in the source code, not in the appearance. Text displayed large and bold isn't automatically an H1 — technically, it can be an ordinary paragraph a search engine doesn't recognise as a main heading. That's exactly why we check the source code, and don't rely on the look.
Several H1s, or none at all, blur the topic
If H1 is missing, the page has no named key statement from the search engine's perspective — it has to guess the topic from the remaining content. If several H1s sit on one page, on the other hand, several key statements compete with each other: is this about "custom furniture" or "news from the workshop"? Either way weakens the matching to search queries. People working with a screen reader also orient themselves by the H1: they have the heading list read out and jump to the main heading to grasp where they've landed. Several main headings make this orientation ambiguous.
How we check H1 on every page
The SEO audit area counts the H1 headings in the source code of every page examined. Exactly one H1 counts as passed. No H1 gets reported as a serious shortcoming, since the page then lacks a key statement entirely. Several H1s count as a moderate shortcoming: the page has headings, but no unambiguous one. In this case, the report states the exact count, so your agency can demote the excess ones to the next rank, H2. How the remaining rank levels should follow each other is checked by the separate heading-hierarchy check point.
- Ask your agency for a list of which heading is set as H1 on every page.
- Word every page's H1 so it names the topic in one phrase — "Bathroom renovation in Wels", say.
- Check the homepage especially — that's where H1 often accidentally sits in the logo, or is missing entirely.
- Demote excess H1 headings to H2, instead of deleting them.
- Don't rely on font size: text displayed large isn't automatically an H1.
FAQ
What is an H1 heading?
H1 is the heading of a web page technically marked up as the main heading — the top of six rank levels, H1 through H6, in the source code. It names the topic of the whole page, the way a headline names the topic of a newspaper article. Search engines and screen readers use it to categorise the page. The rank sits in the source code, not in the font size.
Are several H1s on one page harmful?
Several H1s make a page's key statement ambiguous: search engines have a harder time matching the topic, and screen reader users encounter several "main headings". Our check reports this as a moderate shortcoming and states the count. The fix is simple — one heading stays H1, all the others get demoted to H2 subheadings.
How do I find out whether my page has an H1?
Font size alone doesn't reveal it, since the rank sits in the source code. The easiest way is to commission a check: the SEO audit area counts the H1s on every page and reports both missing and excess ones. Alternatively, your agency can check in the content management system what rank level is assigned to every page's top heading.