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Your homepage has no main heading (H1) — and why Google cares

Every page should have exactly one main heading — the H1 — that says what the page is about. It sounds like pedantry, but when it is missing, both Google and quick-scanning humans are left guessing.

This one is usually invisible to owners: the page might display big styled text that looks like a heading but is, under the hood, just bold paragraph text.

Why it costs you customers

Search engines weigh the H1 heavily when deciding what queries your page should appear for. No H1 means one less strong signal — on small sites that have few signals to begin with, every one counts.

Screen readers also navigate by headings; a page without them is harder work for vision-impaired customers.

Check it in 30 seconds

View your page source and search for <h1. None found — or three found — both are worth fixing.

Our free check counts them for you.

How to fix it

Pick the sentence

Your H1 should be the one line you would say first to a stranger: "Wood-fired pizza overlooking the vines in Willunga". Not "Welcome to our website".

Platform editors

WordPress/Wix/Squarespace text blocks all have a style dropdown — set your main line to "Heading 1" and every other section heading to Heading 2/3. One H1 per page.

Hand-built

Wrap it: <h1>Your line</h1>. Style it with CSS rather than demoting it to a styled <div>.

From our own site checks

Write the H1 for humans and let Google eavesdrop, not the reverse. A heading stuffed for robots ("Best Cheap Plumber Bendigo Emergency 24hr") repels the exact person it attracted.

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