You look through your recently created website or recently written article and notice that the header is empty. This might result from an empty H1 tag in the structure of content. Let’s take a look at how to check and fix it.
What Does “Empty H1 Tag” Mean?
Heading 1 is a structural element in the information hierarchy placed on the website. It is responsible for correctly displaying the text. There are tags from 1 to 6. While lower tags H5 or H6 usually represent, for example, a list of similar items, Heading 1 usually stands for the title.
Empty H1 tag issue means that the website contains pages with zero value of an <h1></h1> HTML tag.
What Triggers the Empty H1 Issue?
The most common reason that causes an empty Heading 1 tag problem is that there are pages in the website structure without an Hheading 1. The respective HTML <h1></h1> tag is present, but it has no value, no text filling.
How to Check the Issue?
To check whether everything is fine with H1 tags, you need to look at the code of the web page. The first option for how to do this is to use a specialized online tool like this one: https://codebeautify.org/source-code-viewer
The second option is to check it manually. You can either right-click on a blank space of a page and choose the option “View page source” or press Ctrl+U simultaneously. In the code, find the field starting with <h1>. This is what you need.
The simplest and most straightforward method to address this issue is by employing services like Sitechecker. Conduct an audit, and it will locate all pages with an empty H1 tag.
Subsequently, you’ll receive a list of all the pages that have an empty H1 issue.
Why is This Important?
While CSS is responsible for correct layout, HTML represents the web page structure. Heading 1 is the key element here as it usually represents the heading of the text. This is exactly what catches the visitors’ attention first.
Moreover, the headline is crucial for the SEO performance of the site. It shall contain the most important keywords for the search engine. In addition, it shall be precise and relevant, clearly depicting the topic of the resource. This impacts user experience and helps the system identify, crawl, and index the site.
An empty Heading 1 tag dramatically decreases the visibility of a web resource.
Detect pages where H1 is empty
Crawl the website to collect all pages where H1 tag is empty
How to Fix the Empty H1 Tag?
Find in the source code the field responsible for an H1 tag <h1></h1> and write a new title there. Remember, the heading 1 tag is vital for the site’s overall performance, so it shall be relevant, creative, and unique.
For more information about websites nature, possible issues, and how to fix them, take a look at this video by John Mueller:
