Heading 1 - HackMD

# Back to Basics: What are Heading Tags and Why You Should Use Them ## What are Heading Tags? Heading tags are HTML tags that are used to describe the different types or levels of headings on a webpage. Heading tags, also known as header tags, range from H1 to H6. H1 heading tags are used to denote the title of the content. H2 heading tags are used to denote the main headings of the content, while H3 tags are used to denote sub-headings and so forth. It goes down till H6. ## Heading Tags with an Example Here is an explanation of heading tags with an example. If you take a look at this blog post, you will see that the title is in H1. You can actually select it with your mouse cursor, right-click, and then select “Inspect” to see the HTML attributes. After checking the title, you can now check and see the other headings in the content as well. For example, the heading right above this content is H2. You can inspect it as well. In the same way, whenever you read a blog post or just some website content in general, it is typically arranged in headings and sub-headings ## How Can You Create Heading Tags? Let’s come to how you can create heading tags. ### In Word Processing Software and Text Editors If you are writing some content, say a blog post (like we’re doing right now) using a text editor or a word processing software, then there is usually a very conspicuously-provided option for creating headings. For example, in MS Word, there is a menu in the ribbon where you can select the various styles for your text. in this menu, you can find options like heading 1, heading 2, and so on. ### In HTML Code If you are uploading some content to your website and you need to directly add it to the HTML code, you can create heading tags very easily. All you have to do is use these tags: <h1>Heading 1</h1> <h2>Heading 2</h2> <h3>Heading 3</h3> <h4>Heading 4</h4> <h5>Heading 5</h5> <h6>Heading 6</h6> ## Why You Should Use Heading Tags Using heading tags has a number of different benefits. Here are some of the main reasons why you should consider using them whenever you write content. #### They help clearly describe the hierarchical progression of the content If you carefully organize your written content into headings and sub-headings, it can describe the progression of your discussion. For example, the H1 tag can describe the title of your content whereas all the various H2 tags can describe the sub-headings. Then, for each of those sub-headings, you can add H3 tags to make section headings. In this way, your readers will perfectly know which section is part of which sub-heading. #### They can help your readers easily get to the stuff they need Another benefit of using heading tags in your content is that they help readers easily find the part that they need. In other words, when you create headings and sub-headings using heading tags, your readers can quickly skim through the content and see all the stuff that it contains. Then, they can jump to the part that they actually need and leave the rest. If you don't use heading tags and put the content together in just a big wall of text, then your readers won't know where to jump and this can cause them to get frustrated and leave. #### They can help the SEO-friendliness of your content Another benefit of using heading tags is that they can enhance the SEO-friendliness of your content. When you use headings and sub-headings, search engines are able to understand the relevancy, scope and value of the content. For example, if a search engine comes to your post and sees that there is an H1 tag with the text "Best Monitors in 2024," it will understand that to be the title. Then, it will go through the other heading tags and see that all the H2 tags contain the names of the various products, and the H3 tags contain the different aspects of your discussion on each one, such as the pricing, features, and so on. The more detailed your [Learning](https://www.freetimelearning.com/) is, the more valuable your content will be. And the more valuable your content is, the more it will be favoured by search engines. If you want to learn more about search engine optimization to understand how this works, take a look at this post on “[What is SEO?](https://www.blogsnest.com/what-is-seo/)” ## Conclusion And with that, we’re going to give this post a wrap. Heading tags are important HTML elements that can help you describe the progression and hierarchy of your content. In the post above, we've looked at what they are in detail, how you can use them, and what benefits they provide. We hope you learned something beneficial here. Be back for more!