Heading Tags SEO: H1, H2, H3 Best Practices (And the Divi Bug Most Guides Miss)

I’ve already covered how to write meta titles and descriptions that fit Rank Math’s snippet preview limits in my meta tags guide. Heading tags are the other half of your on-page structure — they’re what tells Google, and increasingly AI search tools, how your content is actually organized. Get them right and your page reads like a clean outline. Get them wrong and you’re sending mixed signals about what your page is even about.

Heading tags (H1–H6) are HTML elements that organize a webpage into a logical hierarchy. They help search engines, screen readers, and users understand the structure and main topics of a page.

Most heading tag guides cover the same basic rules: one H1, logical hierarchy, don’t skip levels. Those rules matter, so I’ll cover them properly here. But if you’re running WordPress with Divi, there’s a specific bug in Divi’s default comment template that creates a duplicate H1 on every single blog post — and I haven’t seen a single mainstream SEO guide mention it. I’ll walk you through that fix too.

What Heading Tags Actually Do

HTML supports six heading levels, H1 through H6. Each one signals a level of importance in your content’s structure, similar to a table of contents. Search engines read this structure to understand what your page covers and how your ideas relate to each other. Screen readers use the same structure to let visually impaired users jump directly to the section they need. Increasingly, AI Overviews and AI search tools also lean on heading structure to pull out sections of your content as direct answers.

In plain terms: your H1 is the main topic of the page. Your H2s are the major sections under that topic. Your H3s break those sections into smaller pieces. If you removed every paragraph of body text and only read the headings top to bottom, the outline should still make complete sense on its own.

H1: One Per Page, No Exceptions

WordPress automatically wraps your post title in an H1 tag, so in most cases you don’t need to add one manually — your title already is the H1. The main thing to watch for is accidentally creating a second H1 somewhere else on the page, which is a more common problem than people expect, especially with page builders like Divi. I’ll cover the specific Divi issue below.

Keep your H1 focused on the core topic of the page, include your primary keyword where it fits naturally, and avoid stuffing it with every keyword variation you’re targeting. Save that for your H2s and H3s.

H2 and H3: Building a Logical Hierarchy

H2s mark your main sections. H3s sit underneath a specific H2 to break that section into smaller parts. The rule that trips people up most is skipping levels — going from an H2 straight to an H4, or from your H1 directly to an H3. While skipping heading levels won’t automatically hurt rankings, it creates a less logical document structure for search engines, screen readers, and users. Keeping a consistent hierarchy is considered best practice.

A simple way to check your own structure: an H3 should always be able to answer “what part of the H2 above it is this?” If it can’t, it’s either misplaced or it should be its own H2.

Common Heading Mistakes to Avoid

• Multiple H1s on one page — confuses which topic is actually primary
• Skipping heading levels — jumping from H2 to H4 breaks the logical outline
• Using headings for visual styling only — wrapping a testimonial or a banner in an H2 just because you want bigger text tells search engines that content is a major subtopic, when it isn’t
• Headings inside sidebars, widgets, or footers — some themes label widget areas like “Recent Posts” with an H2 or H3, which gets read as part of your page’s content outline even though it isn’t
• Keyword stuffing in lower-level headings — H4 through H6 carry very little SEO weight, so forcing keywords in at that level does more harm to readability than good for rankings

If you simply want larger text, use CSS or your theme’s typography settings instead of changing a paragraph into an H2 or H3. Heading tags should reflect document structure, not appearance.

The Divi Comment Template H1 Bug

This is the part most SEO guides don’t cover, because it’s specific to how Divi builds its default blog post templates. If your site is on Divi and you have comments enabled, your comment count text is wrapped in an H1 tag by default — on every single post. That gives each blog post two H1s: your actual title, and the comment count sitting further down the page. Rank Math and Ahrefs will both flag this as a duplicate H1 issue if you run a site audit.

Here’s how to fix it, depending on how your site is set up:

1. If you’re using the Divi Theme Builder for your post template, go to Divi > Theme Builder and open your post template
2. Find the Comment Count Text element in the Comments module
3. Open its Design tab and change the heading level from H1 to H2 or H3, whichever fits your existing hierarchy
4. If you’re not using the Theme Builder, you’ll need to edit comments.php directly — always do this in a child theme, never the parent theme, or your fix will be wiped out on the next Divi update. The default comment count heading tag sits near the top of the file and just needs the h1 tags changed to h2
5. Clear your cache after making the change, since a cached version of the page will keep showing the old markup

If you’ve already disabled comments on your site, this specific issue won’t apply to you since there’s no comment count being rendered at all — one more reason it’s worth doing if comments aren’t adding value to your site. I covered the full process in my guide to disabling comments in WordPress.

How to Check Your Own Heading Structure

You don’t need an expensive tool to audit this. A few practical ways to check:

• Right-click any page and select Inspect, then search the HTML for <h1 to confirm there’s only one H1 tag on the page.
• Use a browser extension like Detailed SEO Extension or the Web Developer extension to view your page’s heading structure without digging through the HTML. They display all heading tags in order, making it easy to spot duplicate H1s or skipped heading levels.
• In Rank Math, run a site audit and check the “Content” section for duplicate or missing H1 issues across your posts.
• Read through just your H1, H2, and H3 headings on a published post. If they form a clear outline without the paragraphs underneath, your heading structure is probably in good shape.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it bad to have more than one H1 on a page?

For most WordPress blog posts, yes — stick to one H1 per page so search engines have a single clear signal for the page’s main topic. There’s ongoing debate about how much this affects rankings directly, but it’s still considered best practice, and tools like Rank Math and Ahrefs will flag it as an issue during a site audit.

Do I need to manually add an H1 to my WordPress posts?

No, in almost all cases. WordPress and most themes, including Divi, automatically wrap your post title in an H1 tag. You only need to check this if your theme is unusual or heavily customized.

Why does my Divi site show a duplicate H1 in Rank Math or Ahrefs?

This is almost always caused by Divi’s default comment count text, which is wrapped in an H1 tag by default in the comment template. Change the heading level to H2 in the Theme Builder’s Comment Count Text settings, or edit comments.php in a child theme.

Should I include keywords in every heading?

No. Your primary keyword belongs in the H1, and related keywords can appear naturally in H2s where they fit the section’s content. Forcing a keyword into every single heading reads as repetitive and can look like over-optimization to search engines.

How many H2s should a blog post have?

There’s no fixed number — it depends on how many major sections your content naturally breaks into. A 1,000-word post might have 4 to 6 H2s, while a longer guide could have considerably more. The goal is a clear outline, not hitting a specific count.

Do heading tags affect SEO?

Yes. They help search engines understand page structure and improve accessibility, although high-quality content remains the primary ranking factor.