The Importance of Text Tags for Search Engines

If you’ve ever added a blog post to WordPress and seen options like Heading 1, Heading 2, or Paragraph, you might have wondered what those actually mean and if they’re necessary. These options aren’t just for making text stand out. They are called text tags and play a big role in how visitors and search engines read your website. 

And don’t worry – you don’t have to know anything about coding to use text tags on the backend of your website!

Key Takeaways:

• An explanation of what text tags are and how you should use them on your website.
• Why text tags are important for SEO and ranking in search results.
• Step-by-step guide on how to add tags in Showit and WordPress.
• Mistakes to avoid in order to use tags effectively.

What Are Text Tags?

Text tags are HTML elements that define the heading, subheadings, and text on a page on your website. Tags tell search engines which parts of your content are the most important. They also keep your page organized and easy to scan, appealing to those skimmers!

Depending on your website platform, the design is tied to text tags, but not always. In Squarespace, you have to define what you want your text tags to look like (size, font, color, etc.). Every time you use a tag, that design will appear. In Showit, no matter what text tag you use, you can design the text however you want. I prefer Showit’s option!

Every single word you have on your website should have a tag associated with it. This is how search engines ‘read’ your content.

What Are Heading Tags?

Heading tags range from H1 to H6 and are organized hierarchically to help users and search engines understand the structure and flow of the information on the page. H1 tags are the most important heading on the page. This is your blog title! 

H2 tags come next. These are your subheadings throughout the blog. H3 tags go under H2 tags to specify the information even further, and so on. I typically only go to H3 tags but occasionally break out H4s. 

Why Text Tags Matter for SEO

Text tags play a big role in how search engines understand your content. You’re showing search engines what your blog is about and how the information is organized, which helps your content rank better in search results. The more search engines understand your content, the better your chances of ranking highly in search results.

Text tags improve user experience, which is indirectly a ranking factor. Search engines expect websites to give positive experiences to the users it sends to them. High bounce rates tell search engines that you didn’t provide a good experience, so search engines will gradually stop sending new traffic to your website. On the other hand, when people spend a lot of time on your website, search engines think you provided a good experience, and they’ll be more likely to send more traffic to your site.

How to Add Text Tags in Showit and WordPress

Showit and WordPress work together to create beautifully designed blogs. The design of each page lives in Showit, while the blog content lives in WordPress. Both require heading tags, so let me show you how to add them.

Showit

Navigate to the page where you want to add text tags. Select the text on the page. On the left-hand side, go to Text Properties. Use the dropdown to select the text tag you want to apply to that section of copy.

Again, selecting text tags in Showit won’t change the design of the text. That’s still up to you! But it tells search engines how important this section of copy is.

WordPress

I draft all my blogs in Google Docs, then copy and paste them into WordPress when I’m ready to publish them. The formatting in Google Docs actually transfers over to WordPress! So, if you use headings in Google Docs, they will show up as the same headings in WordPress. That’s a little hack for you 😉

If you want to add headers manually, click on the text you want to make into a heading. Then, click the little ‘p’ icon in the toolbar. Choose ‘heading,’ then select the heading tag you want. And that’s it! The text will look bigger in the backend of WordPress to indicate that it’s a header. When you preview your blog post, your style and design in Showit will apply to the headings.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

What are some things you should avoid doing to appeal to both search engines and users?

Font Styling Instead of Heading Tags

Sometimes, people think the design is enough to break up the text. They will make the text bigger, change the font or color, or make it bold or italics. While this might work for someone reading your blog, it does nothing for search engines. You need text tags to help search engines understand your content and know when to show it in search results. 

Using Multiple H1s

Having more than one H1 tag can confuse search engines and hurt your SEO. Remember, an H1 tag is the MOST important text on the page. There can’t be TWO most important texts!  Search engines might not know which one is most important, which can make it harder for your page to rank. 

Skipping Heading Levels (e.g., H1 to H4)

Headings tags are hierarchical. H4 can’t come before H2 or H3. They need to go in order. If you think of heading tags like a table of contents, skipping levels breaks the logical flow of the content. It’s confusing to search engines and readers. It can also impact the functionality of screen readers. Keep things clean and easy to follow by using heading tags in order!

FAQs About Text Tags

How many heading tags could there be?

As many as you feel necessary! Heading tags should break up the text into bite-sized pieces. Depending on the length of the content, that could be anywhere from three to thirty heading tags.

What is the most important text tag on a page?

H1 is the most important heading tag, so it should only be used once on each page of your website. Only one thing can be the MOST important!

What is the p tag?

P indicates ‘paragraph’, which is the tag used on all other content on the page. This is the body copy or paragraphs that come under the heading tags.

What is the purpose of heading tags?

Heading tags break up the text visually. They also help search engines understand the hierarchy of the page so that they can rank it more accurately.

How many heading tags are there in HTML?

There are six heading tags to choose from, as well as tags like p (paragraph), div (stylistic elements), and nav (navigation menu).

Add Text Tags to Your Website!

I hope your website designer has already applied text tags to the main pages of your website. I most often see it skipped on blog posts. So go back through your blogs and make sure you have text tags applied and haven’t just used stylistic elements (bold, sizing, etc.) to create headers. Text tags are super easy to apply in WordPress, so this shouldn’t be a huge undertaking (especially if you’ve been doing it right all along 😉).