Blogspot On-page SEO Part 1: Where's My H1 Tags Gone?

Aim: How to implement H1 and H2 tags in your Blogspot blog to increase on-page SEO

This is part one of Blogspot On-page SEO, a bi-weekly (sometimes weekly) workshop that aims to increase your Blogspot SEO. So what is it about on-page SEO that's so important? For a fact, your blog won't do well in search engine results without proper on-page and off-page SEO. It's my personal opinion that many people neglect the importance of on-page and focus their efforts on off-page only. Have you ever heard of that saying 'Your only as strong as your weakest link'? Think of your on-page SEO as laying a foundation for all your off-page SEO efforts. As we all know, Blogspot isn't really kitted towards SEO unlike that of WP; so it's important if we want to rank high to do the on-page improvements ourselves. This week I'm going to talk about implementing the H1 and H2 tags into your Blogspot blog to improve SEO.

H1 and H2 header tags are very important as far as blog SEO is concerned. They are used by search engines as a means of highlighting certain areas of the article that are of importance and give a generalised description (to the search engine) of what the article is about. The problem we have as Blogspot users is that H1 and H2 tags are not included; resolving this problem means adding them manually. If your not familiar with HTML, don't worry as this workshop will guide you through step-by-step the process of adding header tags to your Blogspot blog to increase SEO.

1) Navigate to the 'Blogspot Dashboard' and then go to 'Design'->'Edit HTML'. Make sure to check the box 'expand widget template' to make the next process easier. If your unsure what your doing, please back-up your Blogspot template before moving on to step two!

2) Using the search facility provided with most modern internet browsers (I am using Google Chrome, you can easily access this by holding Ctrl key and press the F key), find '<b:if cond='data:post.title'>' in the template code.

3) The block of code underneath '<b:if cond='data:post.title'>' should look very similar to the below code. Where I've highlighted in a pale maroon colour, you will need to manually edit to '<h1 class='post-title entry-title'>' and '</h1>' rather than the original '<h3 class='post-title entry-title'>' and '</h3>'.

<b:if cond='data:post.title'>

      <h3 class='post-title entry-title'>

     <b:if cond='data:post.link'>

       <a expr:href='data:post.link'><data:post.title/></a>

     <b:else/>

        <b:if cond='data:post.url'>

          <a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>

        <b:else/>

          <data:post.title/>

        </b:if>

     </b:if>

      </h3>

    </b:if>

4) Using the search facility again, find ']]></b:skin>' in the template code. Just above this tag, you will need to copy and paste the following piece of code below. The areas highlighted in pale maroon can be edited dependent on the look of your blog. If your start to struggle with this stage, drop me a comment and I will try my best to help you.

h1.post-title, .post h1 #Blog1 h1, #Blog2 h1 

{

border-bottom:0px Dotted #000000;

border-top:0px Dotted #000000;

margin:.25em 0 0;

padding:0 0 4px;

font-size:150%;

font-weight:normal;

line-height:1.4em;

color:#1c3c6f;

}

4) Make sure that you save all the configuration changes and your done with implementing H1 tags into your Blogspot blog.

5) H2 tags are next and I usually situate them within the post itself. As you can see with many of my post's, I have an 'Aim' (in a dark maroon colour) section which I wrap H2 tags around. If you jump straight into a post (unlike me), you might not find it not necessary to carry on and add H2 tags to your blog.

6) You have two tabs at the top of the Blogspot posting area; 'Edit HTML' and 'Compose'. You will need to click on 'Edit HTML' for this part of the workshop and locate your sub-title within the HTML code. If your struggling, it might be easier to use your internet browsers search facility.

7) Add an open <H2> tag at the start of the title and a closed one </H2> at the end and your done. This will need to be implemented on every post you make if you want the H2 title to take effect (tedious I know). An example can be found in the below code. I have highlighted the parts that need to be manually added.


<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;"><h2>Aim: How to implement H1 and H2 tags in your Blogspot blog to increase on-page SEO</h2></span>


You should now have H1 and H2 header tags implemented in your Blogspot blog, congratulations! As an extra tip, try and include keywords into your H1 and H2 tags to improve on-page SEO.

I hope I have been very helpful in my first workshop. If you have any questions or problems please post them in the comments area; I will try my hardest to answer any of your comments and get back to you. Please subscribe to Blogspot SEO via feed or add us to your Google Friend Connect.

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