H1 tag checker

What the H1 is for

The H1 is the page's main headline in code: the <h1> element. Readers see it as the big headline at the top. Screen readers announce it as the start of the content and let people jump straight to it. Search engines read it as a strong clue to what the page covers.

Google's documentation on title links lists headings among the places it can take a result's title from, and suggests making the page's main title stand out, for example as the first visible H1. A good H1 tells someone who has just landed exactly where they are, in one line.

How to read the result

• One H1: what you want.
• No H1: the page has no main headline in code, even if one looks big on screen. Big bold text styled to look like a heading isn't one.
• More than one: usually a theme putting the logo, a menu label or every section title in an H1. Keep one, the one that names the page, and make the others H2s or plain text.
• Length: between about 20 and 70 characters is guidance, not a rule. Shorter often says too little ("Welcome"); much longer starts reading like a paragraph.
• Keyword: when you give one, we check that the H1 contains it, or at least all its main words.
• Same as the title tag: shown for information. Both answers are fine.

Should the H1 match the title tag?

Either way works. When they match, the page is simple to maintain and the headline people land on is the one they clicked in the results. Many content systems fill both from a single title field, which is why they so often match.

When they differ, it's often because each has a different job. The title tag competes in a list of search results, has roughly 600 pixels before Google cuts it, and usually carries your brand. The H1 is read by someone already on the page, so it can be warmer and drop the brand. A title of "Dog-friendly hotels in Bath: 12 we've stayed in | Wanderpaws" with an H1 of "Where to stay in Bath with your dog" is a good pair. What to avoid is a title and an H1 about different things.

H1 mistakes this checker catches

• The logo as the H1. Many themes wrap the site's logo or name in an <h1> in the header, so every page's main heading is "Acme Ltd" and the real headline is demoted or doubled. Fix it in the theme's header template: put the logo in a plain link and keep the H1 for the page's own headline. Even on the homepage, "Acme: handmade oak furniture" says far more than "Acme".
• An image as the H1. When the H1 holds only an image, the image's alt text becomes the heading's text. If the alt is missing, or just "logo", the heading says nothing. Use real text where you can; if it has to be an image, write the headline in its alt text.
• An empty H1. Often left behind by a page builder, or filled in later by JavaScript. Screen readers announce an empty heading, and crawlers that don't run JavaScript see nothing.
• A generic H1 like "Home", "Blog", "Products" or "Welcome". True, but it tells nobody what this page offers.

What it can't see

It reads the HTML your server sends. An H1 inserted by JavaScript, common in single-page apps, won't show up here; Google usually sees it after rendering, but many AI crawlers won't. To check what Google rendered, use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console.

It also can't judge whether your H1 is the best headline for the search. For that, search your keyword and read the headlines of the pages that rank. For the rest of the page's headings, the heading structure checker shows the whole outline.