Web Design for Search Engines or Users?
After reading a popular SEO / webmaster forum recently, one of the questions someone had posted was “how many <h1> title headings is acceptable in Google?“. Firstly for any non web designers, a <h1> tag is the code that means basically ‘the most important heading of the page’. By definition there should only really be one of these per page, for a range of reasons. Firstly, for a website to be accessible it has to be easily understood by screenreaders, which are used by vision-impaired users. To these users, the structure of the page and the semantics of the code make the text ‘flow’ in a logical and understandable fashion. Having multiple <h1> heading title tags can impair their understanding as it confuses the structure of the page, and might create a somewhat disjointed experience.
So why do some people use multiple <h1> headings in pages? Apart from a lack of web accessibility knowledge, they can be overused for supposed search engine benefits. It is widely thought in the search optimisation industry that <h1> heading tags are quite influential in the search engines, and the keywords used in these help search rankings. I would tend to agree with this, however it needs to be remembered that web designers should be creating sites designed for users, and not for search engines.
Now I’m not proposing that search engines should be ignored – they can be a very powerful source of traffic and revenue! What I am saying, though, is that the search optimisation of a website should not interfere with accessibility and the general user experience. A balance should be struck where the site is fully optimised for Google, Yahoo and Bing etc, but should not interfere with the usability and accessibility of the site.
Written by Chris Pangburn.
