No H1 or Multiple H1s

Why this matters

After the title tag, the H1 is the strongest on-page topic signal Google reads. Zero H1s leaves Google guessing from body text and nav copy. Multiple H1s fragment the signal — Google picks one, sometimes the wrong one. Most templates ship with both the site title and the post title in <h1> tags by default. If you've never touched the layout, you probably have two and didn't know it. The fix isn't writing more. It's tagging the line that's already on the page.

How to fix it (3 steps)

1. 1

   Pick the line that summarizes the page

   Read the page and ask: if you could keep one sentence, what would it be? That's your H1. Someone who opens the URL with no other context should understand what the page is from that line alone.

2. 2

   Demote the rest to H2 and H3

   Section headings on the page are H2s. Sub-sections are H3s. Skipping levels (H1 jumping straight to H4) confuses screen readers and gives Google a fragmented outline. Build it like a table of contents and nest in order.

3. 3

   Don't keyword-stuff

   "Best Cheap Affordable Free SEO Audit Tools 2026" reads like spam and converts worse than a sentence a human would write. The H1 is human-facing copy first, search-engine signal second. Pick the line a person would actually say out loud.