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I see this so often, I figured I'd try to explain this concept to people just a little.
The most common mistake I see on websites, it's literally the first thing I check, is misuse of the tags on the page.
The reason, I think, is that people misunderstand the purpose of the tags themselves. This is going to be a little bit technical, just because it has to, but try to bear with it and it'll help you a lot in your blogging efforts.
HTML is a markup designed to tell a computer or a blind person what the importance of the data within the tags is. CSS and inline style is to help people who can see enjoy the look of the page more. Tags like <h1> <h2> <h3> <strong> <em> are NEVER supposed to be used for visual reasons. Their whole reason of existance is to help a computer or a blind person figure out what is going on in the page.
Think of the text on the page as if you were expecting a computer to catalog the text contained on the page, or a screen reading program to read the text to a blind person. These are the tags that are most important, in order of importance.
<title> is the tag that tells the person what the whole page is about.
<h1> is only supposed to be used once on a page. It is the main topic heading of the outline of what is on the page.
<h2> is a secondary heading that goes under h1. It is the strawberry ice cream to the h1 of ice cream. It is a heading that tells that the text inside it gives more detail to a subheading.
<h3> if h2 is the strawberry, h3 is the natural organic strawberry. It gives further detail to a h2.
You should not ever have a h3 without a h2 before it, or without an h1 before both of them. The headings are intended to nest, meaning, you can't explain FURTHER details on something that you didn't bring up yet. If you want text to be a different size, that is why you use style elements.
<strong> or <em> is intended to tell a screen reading program to give more strength to that word when it is read. It says, this word or words should be read with emphasis or strongly, because it is important.
If all anyone did that uses blogs or websites in general to promote their site did was try to remember the proper use of those on-screen elements, you would have more success online that those that did not.
You'll even see wordpress themes autogenerating h1 or h2 tags in sidebars, with such genius keywords as "archives" put into a h1 or h2 heading tag telling google that their page has important content about the topic "archives". Things like that can be fixed, but first you have to be able to see the problem and know it is there.
I also suggest that you learn to write just the tags above in html, and when working on a page for your wordpress site, do it in the HTML editor. All you have to do is surround the headings with:
<h1>Heading 1</h1>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
and write your paragraphs in the middle of the headings. Wordpress will automatically add the <p></p> tags. A smart habit to get into is to take your keywords, and make the heading outline BEFORE you write your content text. An example would be, lets say you want to write a page about life insurance.
<h1>Life Insurance</h1>
<h2>Term Life Insurance</h2>
<h3>Return of Premium Term</h3>
<h2>Whole Life Insurance</h2>
<h3>Simplified Issue Whole Life | Burial Insurance</h3>
<h2>Universal Life Insurance</h2>
<h3>Guaranteed Universal Life</h3>
Then go back, and write the content for each keyword you're targeting. This way you end up staying on topic and targeting the keywords you intended to target.
Just learning this one thing well can make a huge difference in your site's chances of success.
The most common mistake I see on websites, it's literally the first thing I check, is misuse of the tags on the page.
The reason, I think, is that people misunderstand the purpose of the tags themselves. This is going to be a little bit technical, just because it has to, but try to bear with it and it'll help you a lot in your blogging efforts.
HTML is a markup designed to tell a computer or a blind person what the importance of the data within the tags is. CSS and inline style is to help people who can see enjoy the look of the page more. Tags like <h1> <h2> <h3> <strong> <em> are NEVER supposed to be used for visual reasons. Their whole reason of existance is to help a computer or a blind person figure out what is going on in the page.
Think of the text on the page as if you were expecting a computer to catalog the text contained on the page, or a screen reading program to read the text to a blind person. These are the tags that are most important, in order of importance.
<title> is the tag that tells the person what the whole page is about.
<h1> is only supposed to be used once on a page. It is the main topic heading of the outline of what is on the page.
<h2> is a secondary heading that goes under h1. It is the strawberry ice cream to the h1 of ice cream. It is a heading that tells that the text inside it gives more detail to a subheading.
<h3> if h2 is the strawberry, h3 is the natural organic strawberry. It gives further detail to a h2.
You should not ever have a h3 without a h2 before it, or without an h1 before both of them. The headings are intended to nest, meaning, you can't explain FURTHER details on something that you didn't bring up yet. If you want text to be a different size, that is why you use style elements.
<strong> or <em> is intended to tell a screen reading program to give more strength to that word when it is read. It says, this word or words should be read with emphasis or strongly, because it is important.
If all anyone did that uses blogs or websites in general to promote their site did was try to remember the proper use of those on-screen elements, you would have more success online that those that did not.
You'll even see wordpress themes autogenerating h1 or h2 tags in sidebars, with such genius keywords as "archives" put into a h1 or h2 heading tag telling google that their page has important content about the topic "archives". Things like that can be fixed, but first you have to be able to see the problem and know it is there.
I also suggest that you learn to write just the tags above in html, and when working on a page for your wordpress site, do it in the HTML editor. All you have to do is surround the headings with:
<h1>Heading 1</h1>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
and write your paragraphs in the middle of the headings. Wordpress will automatically add the <p></p> tags. A smart habit to get into is to take your keywords, and make the heading outline BEFORE you write your content text. An example would be, lets say you want to write a page about life insurance.
<h1>Life Insurance</h1>
<h2>Term Life Insurance</h2>
<h3>Return of Premium Term</h3>
<h2>Whole Life Insurance</h2>
<h3>Simplified Issue Whole Life | Burial Insurance</h3>
<h2>Universal Life Insurance</h2>
<h3>Guaranteed Universal Life</h3>
Then go back, and write the content for each keyword you're targeting. This way you end up staying on topic and targeting the keywords you intended to target.
Just learning this one thing well can make a huge difference in your site's chances of success.
