For many, the world of SEO Raleigh NC can be a challenging one to get a firm grasp upon. The variety of rules and preferences Google instills on articles to be considered “optimal” for ranking purposes is seemingly endless. Copywriters tend to focus on reaching a word count, including qualified links, and posting useful content; however, many leave out one of the most influential factors when it comes to a page’s organic search rankings or blog performance: headlines. When you need to drive organic traffic to your site, a carefully crafted, good headline is the first place to start. What are some important headline writing rules you should be following? Red Shark Digital, offering SEO services near me, has created the following guide to help you master writing a headline that ranks.

Red Shark Digital’s Headline Writing Rules

Perform Keyword Research

As stated in our Beginners Guide to SEO, understanding keywords, and their impact on SEO ranking is crucial for drafting content. Keywords help tell Google what an article is about, which then narrows down the results in a search to give you the most relative information. When performing keyword research, you can see suggestions for words and phrasing to utilize in your copy, captions, and headlines. This is good practice when optimizing your content for Google searches.

Make Headlines Scannable

After keywords have been selected it is now time to draft your headlines. When writing a powerful headline, keep the copy direct, concise, and easy to read. A whopping 79% of readers have declared that they scan a page’s content before truly deciding if it is a worthy read. This means your target audience is more likely to absorb the main points of a page and the topics organized by headlines, subheads, and bulleted or numbered lists. In return, comprehendible headlines could lead to readers sharing your content on social platforms or backlinking in their own content. This strategic mix of tried and true SEO Raleigh NC tactics is what allows our Google SEO consulting team at Red Shark Digital to offer premium SEO services near me to our clients.

Utilize Header Tags

As stated before, the mass of readers that visit a page only scan through the content. This is the sole reason why header tags exist and work so well. The phrase “header tags” covers the title, section headers, and subheads labeled in a piece of content. Including header tags at the beginning of your article and throughout the page breaks up the text, adds structure, and improves the overall user experience. Additionally, our Google SEO consulting team recommends adding header tags to increase your ranking on the SERP. Including keywords you want to rank for in headers help search engines understand what your content is about and depict its ranking in their algorithms.

What kinds of header tags are there?

There are six types of header tags that typically range from H1 to H6 that make an impact on your headline-writing SEO strategy.

• H1: Your H1 should be the title of your page, making it the largest type, and the easiest to find. Along with introducing the page’s topic, your H1 has a strong SEO impact. Being the most visible copy on your page, it should include your primary keyword. The marketing team at Red Shark Digital, offering SEO services near me, advises to never use more than one H1 per page.
• H2: Your H2s are the main headlines used to break up your copy into different topics covered in each article section. These also have a strong SEO impact, so include primary and secondary keywords in these headers as well.
• H3-H6: H3, H4, H5, and H6 are considerable to use when a topic needs to be divided into sub-sections. Many use H3 for titling a list, answering questions, and labeling other supporting information added to the copy. These headers rank as less critical for headline-writing SEO strategy, but they still influence your positioning. If it makes sense, try to include secondary or long-tail keywords.

Rely on Red Shark Digital’s SEO Services Near Me for Headlines that Rank

Writing blogs that utilize optimal SEO tactics is hard enough. Throwing headline specifics into the mix and posting content that ranks could seem near impossible! Fortunately, the marketing team at Red Shark Digital specializes in SEO Raleigh NC, to ensure your headline writing and SEO are as effective as possible. We utilize today’s best headline-writing SEO strategy when crafting blogs and other content for our clients to increase traffic, rank higher, and become a tool used by others in the industry.