H1 & H2 tags

[theglowcompany]

Hi,

I'm keen to optimise my site for the search engines. I find alot of reference to H1 & H2 tags & when I run a validation on my home page it states that h1 & h2 are missing.

How do I access/change H1 & H2 and, in relation to SEO, how should this be approached?

Thanks

[harlequin]

seo

hi there, the solution we have is to create 7 templates for each different type of actinic product/brochure templates and around the NETQUOTEVAR:PRODUCTNAME we place heading 1 - 6 tags .. the seventh template has no heading tag as the engines dont like replicated heading tags.

Then for the first six products/brochure fragments on any page we use heading 1-6 templates and all the rest on the page use the one with no heading tag...

when you add the heading tags you will need to specify the font size as well because if you dont then all 6 tags will make the product name decreasingly smaller....

one other note is it is well worth learning how to make your new templates available in actinic without you having to browse for them...this is done by editing the .ini files and provided you back things up there is no reason not to edit the .ini files and make your life easier... (details in handbook and knowlege base)

i am assuming above that you can edit the actinic templates and have some knowledge of html..

oh yes..one other thing...if you can match the meta keywords and description to the first 6 products on that page then your meta tags will be in sync with your heading tags and the engines all love you helping them by telling them which parts of your page are the most important...

works for us....plus obviously we offer a paid for seo service and we usually do a lot more things beside using the heading tags..

Steve Quinn
Harlequin Domains
www.harlequindomains.com
steve@<NOSPAM>harlequindomains.com
0800 0832077

[theglowcompany]

thanks steve, I'm learning alot about seo from various forums - not that it greatly shows on my site at the moment - but we'll get there.

I understand all the basics but the H1 & H2 has been mentioned alot - no I cant do html without detailed instructions.

I think I understand what you are suggesting but it is a bit beyond me & my site is sort of finished.

Is there any way of adding h1 & h2 to say the brocure page & other pages - I envisage that it may not make good SEO sense to have the same throughout the site but possibly the catalog page could benefit

[harlequin]

im in the middle of preparing an instruction set

hi, i have let my self in for it now havent i...

actually i am in the middle of producing an instruction set (and bunch of templates pre-done) for our clients who like to do things themselves, so i will post up here in a little while an exact howto...

Actually, seeing as i stumbled in on your post i will send them to you offline as soon as poss...

Steve

[theglowcompany]

You did a bit!

that would be great though- thanks

info@theglowcompany.co.uk

I will offer any feedback etc


How does it affect existing sites?

Also, briefly, what significance does h1 & h2 have in the SE's?

As I mentioned on anylising my site h1 & h2 arnt there - therefore if they are significant as I suspect this needs to be addressed - is this something Actinic should look at?

[harlequin]

in short

in short they (and h3, h4, h5, and h6) are used to differentiate between headings in a document.

most people (myself included) are guilty of simply using <b> bold tags and increasing font sizes to make things stand out more.

the proper way to do things is to format your documents correctly and therefore give s.e.spiders, and users browsers the best code possible...

an excellent place for information regarding s.e.o techniques is www.webmasterworld.com and more specifically www.seochat.com but you will find out all about the significance of the various tags you can use at webmasterworld...its just been going a little longer than seochat...but then again, seochat runs the Google-Dance tool, and allows you to search all upcoming results on googles pre-internet servers...very cool indeed...

Steve

[harlequin]

actually we do have a problem of our own

we just noticed that one of our clients www.properrecords.com has gone to no1 in google for latest dance music http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...st+dance+music
... but the link to the site is knackered...the product with corresponding reference and page name is still there onsite but the link google has isnt working, is this something someone can see easily...my engineers are moving into a new office today (hurrah) but for once they are not here to tell me.... today of all days google foils us (for a minute)

[theglowcompany]

Google is cream crackered at the moment - if you havnt followed it -tho suppose you have, its not the usual dance & is still shuffling the SERPS like mad - I've lost ££ because of it

-I've been a regular at seo chat for a while but will check out webmasterworld

Is there any way I can use h1 & h2 now that would not greatly affect the look of my site? ie hidden or do I need to hardcode text that will appear?

[harlequin]

example

in a product template, same for brochure fragment, where it says

<FONT FACE="ARIAL" SIZE="+1">NETQUOTEVAR:PRODUCTNAME</FONT>

or <FONT FACE="ARIAL" SIZE="+1">NETQUOTEVAR:BROCHURETITLE</FONT>

A heading tag around either becomes

<h1><FONT FACE="ARIAL" SIZE="+1">NETQUOTEVAR:PRODUCTNAME</FONT> </h1>

and

<h1><FONT FACE="ARIAL" SIZE="+1">NETQUOTEVAR:BROCHURETITLE</FONT> </h1>

the only issues are that a heading tag will increase the size of the text displayed, so you may need to play with the size="+1" bit to get it right (as this counteracts the heading tags wish to increase the physical size of text)...you are allowed negative values as well i.e. size="-1".....

ps, must admit i like to do this work in dreamweaver, it makes it easy to watch the html being created whilst you work and i can provide clearer instructions if you are using dreamweaver...

does that help anyone or am i rambling uselessly

[theglowcompany]

I follow the reasoning in the code - but how would h1 &2 apply to say my homepage - not a product. I think that it is the home page that I need to initially focus on.

Oh, also Alt tags are said to be important - how are these represented in Actinic.

I know what you mean about Dreamweaver - I cant use it but using Actinic does limit your progress with the true web builders

[harlequin]

on your homepage

on your homepage you might want to use a brochure fragment with a heading 1 tag around the brochuretitle where the brochre title is "Glow Sticks, Party Accessories, More Products.....Welcome to GlowSticks.com"

What you are trying to do is to put your keyphrases inside those tags and thats where you can get creative with your content...

You should use the heading tags inside and outside the catalog, although i agree your front page is probably the most important in the engines eyes..

Alt Tags are very important and another reason why i love actinic so much, as actinic unless it is broken will put an alt tag on virtually every image based on simple and correct criteria...

the alt tag for a product image is simply a similar to Alt=NETQUOTEVAR:PRODUCTNAME so it just uses the product name...]

similarly with brochure fragments it uses the brocure fragment title to generate an alt tag for any image associated with that fragment...

It is a fairly simple step if you get into customvar's to say Alt="CUSTOMVAR:ALTTAG1" and then specify your own alt tags for each and every product, this is actually not bad advice as you can usually put quite a lot more info in there than a simple product name, the one thing to be careful of is to try not to simply repeat the product description because most engines ignore repeated text...be creative...

Steve

[harlequin]

about true webbuilders

i am thinking that by saying that you are saying you cannot use other webbuilding software and nothing could be further from the truth its just dreamweaver is my preferred method of design...for others its different.

the only one i would advise not to use is Microsoft Frontpage...it re-writes the code but then again so does dreamweaver sometimes although in dreamweaver its simple to switch off...with microsoft not so.....

anyway, i am accepting no liability here as you are not my customer, but, if you back up your site first +++ take a copy of your site1 folder (sorry actinic, snapshots still not reliable enough to trust completely yet) and try this.

in actinic goto Advanced>Template Manager and if you get a grey box with quite a lot of tabs then you are ok.

if you get the template editor which is more graphical, white background, then choose 'change view' to get the grey tabbed version.

when you have the grey tabbed version of template editor, on the right hand side you can click 'editor' and that will let you browse to any other webpage editing software you use.

when you have done that, you can work through the various templates as and when you need to edit a certain part of the catalog by simply clicking the appropriate button on the approprite tab.....this will open an Actinic template in your chosen editor...

as soon as you open any template you should save it straight away as Backup-Act_Primary.html etc and all should be fine and easy to repair if it all goes horribly wrong..(dont forget then that when you have worked on it, to save it as the original filename otherwise you will keep saving it as Backup-Act_whatever.html and Actinic isnt expecting to use that template it wants the one without backup in front of it...

there are many more articles in the forum and knowledge base about editing actual templates but i hope this clears up a misconception that you have to use dreamweaver....its yet another plus point in actinic's favour and one often overlooked...

Steve

[chrisbrown]

If you upgrade to Developer you can use Dreamwaever as well as a text editor.

By the way. I wouldn't stick all that <FONT> guff in the <H1>, etc tags. Browsers use larger font sizes for headings anyway (unless the user has deliberately overridden the settings) and the Actinic stylesheet automatically sets the font-family to whatever you have set in Design Setting | Site Defaults.

[harlequin]

does it not work in catalog or business

does choosing your template editor not work in catalog and business, im sure it does....i didnt think you needed developer

quite a few of our clients are using d/weaver and other editors and they dont have developer...

although i dont mind selling copies of developer

steve

[chrisbrown]

Sorry I was rather unclear. Developer gives you Dreamweaver integration extensions so that you can see the template XML tags.