What heading tags are
HTML has six levels of headings, H1 down to H6. Used properly they form the page's outline — the same way a book has a title, chapters, and sections:
<h1>Cold Brew Coffee: The Complete Guide</h1>
<h2>Choosing your beans</h2>
<h2>The brewing process</h2>
<h3>Ratios</h3>
<h3>Steep time</h3>
A heading tag is not "big bold text" — styling can make any text large. The tag tells browsers, screen readers, and search engines what role the text plays in the document's structure.
Why Google reads them
Headings are one of the clearest signals of what a page covers and how its topics relate. Google uses them to understand the page's subtopics, to pull featured snippets and jump-to links, and sometimes as replacement text when it rewrites a title. Headings phrased as real questions can also surface in "People also ask" results.
Readers rely on them even more: most visitors scan a page's headings before deciding to read it at all.
How many H1s?
Google's John Mueller has said multiple H1s won't break anything — HTML5 technically allows it. The convention of one H1 per page survives anyway, for good reasons: one main headline states the page's single topic unambiguously, matches how screen readers announce a page, and mirrors what the top-ranking pages overwhelmingly do in practice.
Using them well
- Never skip levels for looks. Going H1 → H3 because the H2 style "looked too big" breaks the outline; fix the CSS instead.
- Make headings informative on their own. "Steep time: 12–18 hours" beats "More details" — scanners and search engines both get the point without reading the paragraph.
- Put keywords where they're honest. If a section genuinely covers a subtopic people search for, say it in the heading's words. Don't force terms into headings that don't deliver.
- Match the pattern of pages that rank. Pages competing for the same query tend to converge on similar structure — similar section counts and similar questions answered.