With the continuous evolution of numerous ranking algorithms, the parameters of ranking are changing consequently. Now there isn’t any single parameter that influences the ranking of a page on Google. Subsequently, parameters which were once considered as important are not so anymore, while numerous new factors have come into play to decide the ranking of a page on Google. Today, Google works on 200 Factors which influence the ranking of a website on this World’s No. 1 Search Engine.

Heading Tags are what are used to differentiate the heading from the main content. For the web designers or web coders, these are also called as HTML header tags or SEO header tags. The most important heading tag is the “h1” tag while the tag which holds the least importance is “h6”. These tags follow a top-down hierarchy and leaving any of the tags forms a structure which is not SEO friendly. What numerous people tend to focus is on the direct impact of the heading tags in the SEO, but they are unaware of the fact that the heading tags have more of indirect effects on the ranking.

Saying this, ‘Heading Tag’ is an important aspect of SEO. It helps the Search Engine know what the page is all about. However, over the time, the influence of heading tags in page optimization has reduced, but it still plays an important role if the industry experts are to be believed.

Why is Header Tag Important in SEO?

If we see practically, then header tags make your document physically appealing and easy to peruse. They provide a structure to your content and hence make it fit into any format or screen. Due to the structural view of the content, your page tends to rank higher in search results and thereby generates significant traffic.

Now, you must be getting a thought that there are numerous pages which do not have a structural layout but still rank higher in search engines. The answer to this question is that these pages already have a good traffic associated with them and might also have sufficient backlinks in them.

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Now let us go through some advantages that Heading Tags provide you with concerning SEO:

1Increase Relevancy

While searching for information, the web spiders tend to move around and compare the keywords present in the Heading Tags. If a match is found, then the spiders tend to index that page into the search list. Hence, having a Heading Tag helps the web crawlers know whether the page is related to the information being searched. It tends to compare the Header Tag with the associated content to check for relevancy.

2Helps in Keywords Consistency

Although not a major part of SEO, but keywords consistency does help a little in page rankings. While crawling through the page, the web spiders tend to check for keywords’ consistency in the Header Tags as well as content associated with the headers.

3H1 tags are of utmost importance

The h1 tag is the most important of all tags amongst the header tags. This tag should never be skipped while creating a blog or page. As the title of the page, this tag also provides some description with regards to content. The web crawlers read this information to see what the page is all about.

4Increase User Experience

Now this is what all the search engines aim at providing the users. User Experience is of utmost importance and as mentioned above header tags tend to increase the same. With a structured layout the users can read and comprehend the content and thereby the bounce rate of the site is lowered, which results in an increased user experience.

5Humming Bird Perspective

An update to the Google algorithm, which is known as the Hummingbird update has been included. This update aims at seeing past keywords and realising the intent of user after doing a particular search. Therefore understanding the user’s mind and formulating an appropriate heading tag will help you increase your rankings. For example, you can think concerning users and formulate a question that the user might ask for. After this, include that question as your header tag and answer that question in the content body.

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Practical Usages of SEO

1. A properly structured document tends to help the user navigate quickly across numerous sections.
2. It provides a quick overview of what the content is all about and hence the user can know if that is what he wants even before reading the entire content.
3. As mentioned myriad times in this article, the intent of using a header tag is not to increase the SEO ranks but to focus more on the user experience and the structured view of the documents which ultimately makes your readers happy, and he gets converted into a frequent reader from a random visitor.

Never Perform These Mistakes While Including Header Tags

1. Do not try and include unnecessary amounts of keywords in your heading tags. Make it precise and easy to understand. By this I mean that do not opt for Keyword Stuffing in your Heading Tags.
2. Keeping in mind and avoid using more than one ‘H1’ tag on a single webpage, as this gives an impression that you are trying to include more keywords on a single page. Wherever required, try and divide your content into two separate pages with single heading tags. This appears to be more meaningful to the web spiders and the visitors.
3. Try and not use any heading as a hidden text as these calls for a penalty on your page, and your page ranking might drop. This penalty may even rise if your hidden component tends to affect SEO.
4. Try and avoid any repeated heading on your entire blog or website. This is a good practice to have different uniquely structured heading tags on your website.
5. Never write similar content both under the h1 tag and the meta-description tag.

What is Pogo Sticking?

Alright! So, you have included all your target keywords, optimised your content and are now ranking on top in the Google Search Results. However, within a time of a week or two, you saw a considerable drop in your ranking and have no idea what just happened? You may have suffered from a problem named ‘Pogo Sticking’. While this word may sound like fun, this is one of the most common problems that is seen in numerous search engines.

Technically “Pogo Sticking” occurs when a user performs any search, clicks on a result very quickly, and then presses the back button and visits another link.

So, simply, ‘Pogo Sticking’ can occur when a user performs a search, clicks on one of the links provided, does not find the content he was looking for, gets unsatisfied and hence retreats to the search results and opens some other link.

If this becomes a common situation, Google will decide upon the fact that you are ranking higher without any reason and your ranking will considerably drop. From an algorithm point of view, you don’t belong to the top of the list if your content is not what users are looking for.

Common Causes of Pogo Sticking

There are numerous reasons so as to why your websites or blogs might be affected with pogo sticking. Since this problem only results due to the non-satisfaction of the customers, in order to avoid this issue you must know some of the common causes, which include:

1Non-match of content and title:

This is one of the major issues for pogo sticking. For example, You tend to write a blog on “Health Benefits of Apple” but none of the health benefits are mentioned explicitly. This is one of the causes of pogo sticking, where the bounce rate increases (How to reduce bounce rate) and thus leads to pogo sticking.

2Spams

Very small articles or generalised content which is of no use to the person visiting your blog, again results in pogo sticking.

3Grammar and Spelling Errors

The wrong framing of sentences or standard grammatical errors tends to irritate the visitor, who as consequences tends to leave your site without reading anything further.

4Slow Loading Time of Site

As we all know, this is the world which runs at an enormous speed. People are becoming fast and their lives are becoming faster. And the biggest point at which anyone and everyone gets irritated quickly is slow internet speed and slow loading of sites. Therefore, nobody needs to waste his time on a website that takes a minute to load. Assure that the server on which your site is hosted is fast and the loading time of your site is like just on a click. It must not take more than a few seconds.

5Number of Pop-Ups or Wrong Position of Ads

Users get annoyed by a high number of pop-ups that appear as soon as they visit your page. Wrong placement of ads which results in decreased visibility of content is another reason for pogo sticking.

6Poor Website Design and User Experience

Again a poorly constructed website with shabby work tends to push the visitors away. An easy to navigate design and articles displayed in a sequential manner are loved by the users. Your blog and its design need to appeal them.

How to Fix the Pogo Sticking Problem

To reduce pogo sticking on your web page or blog, you will need to prevent your visitors from turning back too quickly. To accomplish this task, you will have to get into the readers mind and find out what exactly do they want.

You should write for the readers and invite search engine to send you traffic. For this, you should include less of focus keywords and more of the latent semantic indexing. LSI is what helps search engines rank your web page. Therefore, write for the readers but keep in mind the SEO too.

Some further tricks to reduce Pogo Sticking include:

1Select a Good Welcome theme

One of the most important things that allow your visitor to remain on your website is the welcoming theme. There are numerous WordPress themes available, most of which are free of cost. Your welcome theme must be the last thing that is pushing your visitors away and causing the problem of pogo sticking. Getting the best theme won’t guarantee the elimination of pogo sticking, however, it will reduce one of the factors responsible for same.

2Introduction to Your Content

Your title is the door while the introduction to your post is the greeting with which you welcome them. Once entering through the door, the visitors may leave if they don’t get a proper welcome or are not able to relate to the topic. To reduce this behaviour of visitors try to give as much importance to the introduction as you would to the title. Maintain a perfect symmetry amongst the title, introduction and of course the body of the article.

3Try to include relevant Sub-Headings

Most of the people tend to scroll down through the content just to go through what all is included. For such skimmers try and include relevant as well as catchy headlines which they can relate to. This will give them the general outline of what the article or content is all about. Once done this will help them to stay on the page and peruse further.

4Try and use Images

One thing that attracts most of the audience is the images. Try and utilise relevant images that are eye catching and draws the visitors’ attention. Once the attention has been acquired, the user will by default try to find about what is the image all about and hence your bounce rate and pogo sticking issue will be reduced to a great extent.

5Do not include misleading Keywords

Never try and include anything irrelevant or ambiguous in your articles. Once the user finds out that your article is nothing but full of spams, he will immediately click back and you might never see that user ever again.

6Try and Avoid Pop-Ups

As mentioned earlier, pop-ups are one of the most annoying things that a user experiences after opening a web page. Never allow pop-ups to appear directly on the welcome page, this drives away the visitors while at the same time increases pogo sticking.

Try to include these pop-ups on later pages and if the pop-up plug-in doesn’t allow you for switching the appearance of pop-up consider using something professional. As a good practice, you should try and place the pop up at the time when the user is about to leave your page or after spending some x amount of time.

You may find that your page ranking has slipped from #1 to some position lower; this may be due to other reasons also. However, pogo sticking is one thing that you shouldn’t ignore.

This is a brief elucidation regarding Pogo Sticking from my side. I hope you’ll like it and of course, it would help your blog to regain its position in the Search Engine results.