On-page and content
How to fix a broken heading structure
The headings on these pages skip levels, for example an H4 directly under an H2. Screen readers use the heading outline to navigate, and search engines use it to understand how a page is organised.
What it is, and what it costs
Heading levels (H1–H6) are meant to nest like an outline. Skipping a level, or choosing heading tags for their size rather than their place in the structure, breaks that outline. It mainly hurts accessibility, and it muddies the structure search engines read.
How to fix it
Step through levels in order: one H1 for the page, H2 for its main sections, H3 for subsections inside those. Choose the level by position in the outline, not by how big the text looks; style with CSS instead.
How to check your site
A heading-outline browser extension shows the structure at a glance; a crawl flags skipped levels across the site.
Questions people ask
- Does heading order affect ranking?
- Its direct SEO weight is small; the gain is accessibility and a cleaner structure. Worth fixing, low urgency.
Does your site have this?
Check your site for pages that skip heading levels.
See also
- How to fix title tag problemsThe title tag is the line people read in search results, and the strongest single signal on the page about what it is for. Four things go wrong with it, and a site with one of them usually has two. Each is below, with what it costs and how to put it right.
- How to fix meta description problemsThe meta description is the sentence under your link in search results. It is not a ranking factor, which is exactly why it gets neglected — and it is what decides whether anybody clicks the result you worked to earn. Three faults account for almost all of it.
- How to fix H1 heading problemsThe H1 is the visible heading that tells a reader — and a search engine — what a page is about before either goes any further. Three faults are common, and a template is behind most of them, which means one fix usually clears the whole site.
- How to add alt text to your imagesImages on these pages have no alt attribute. Alt text is what screen-reader users hear instead of the image, what appears when it fails to load, and what puts your images in image search.