SEO - Should my business name be my H1 tag?

Question

I'm learning about SEO, but confused about where to use H1 and H2. Let's say I have a business called "Joe's Bakery." A brief description of it is, "Unusual Flavored Baked Goods" and then I have some categories listed, like Cakes, Pies, Donuts.

Should I put "Joe's Bakery" in the H1 tag? I would think the tagline "Unusual Flavored Baked Goods" is the most important line on the page. Should that be H1, and the categories H2? But then the company name isn't in an H tag, is that important? And what about the <title>. Maybe a combination of both like Joe's Bakery - Unusual Flavored Baked Goods ? Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

I think you're confusing organizing an individual page vs your site. H1, H2, etc, are used to structure/outline your page's content. It tells search engines how your page content is organized, and gives them a synopsis of your page. That's different from what your entire website is about.

Your website as a whole, is about your business/product. Individually, the H1,H2 tags don't say anything by themselves. Let me use an example from schema.org <h1>Avatar</h1>, the H1 tag doesn't tell us anything. Are we talking about the movie, a emoticon, a computer game character? It's just a structural tag. Your schema, on the other hand, tells search engines about you.

Think of it this way. You have a menu that looks like this: `

Custom breads

Croissants

We have several styles of croissants, both filled and non filled

Cinnamon rolls

Do you have a sweet tooth?

Pecan cinnamon rolls

Try our Pecan rolls

Walnut cinnamon rolls

Love walnuts? Try these delicacies.

Custom cakes

Red Velvet

Chocolate

`

So what can schema tell a search engine about you? It tells search engines you are an organization, that your company name is "Joe's Bakery", provides your company address/phone, and can even identify your company logo, along with numerous other characteristics.

Ultimately, your website will end up with multiple pages. Together, they along with your schema, will tell search engines what your company is about.

In addition to schema, there are some things you can do to tell search engines more about you or your company, than about products and services. You can also add an "About Joe's Bakery" page and a "Contact Us" page. These will help search engines know about your company as a whole.

In the mean time while you build your site, you can use H1,H2 tags to organize your home page, as long as you remember your trying to tell search engines how your content is organized. It's not just about gaming SEO with putting keywords in these tags. You may also want to spend some time looking at schema. If you're using any kind of CMS, you probably already have a plugin that will help you with your schema so you don't have to write it by hand.

See https://www.searchenginejournal.com/technical-seo/schema/

Answer 2

Only what the following text body is about should be reflected in an h1 or h2. Google is smart enough to understand if a headline is relevant for what it is headline for or if it is irrelevant. If words of the headline are not also used in the text the headline belongs to, they are of no use for the index.

Answer 3

I would always recommend using a keyword in a H1 where possible and relevant.

For example; (and this is avery high level, generic comment); if someone is searching for "unique cake flavours" Google isn't going to know the context of it by a business name; it needs to understand content, context and intent. I've written an article about SEO Headings on my site that can help understand this: https://www.bristechtonic.co.uk/blog/post/page-titles-and-content