Header Tags (H1, H2, H3) and Why They Help Rankings

When Google visits a webpage it does not view the styling that a human will see. Rather Google's computers see a page with very little formatting, no graphics and very little design. You can mimic this view (whilst using Firefox) by choosing to view the ‘No Style' option for that page. This will then show you a de-stylised version of your page.

When you are creating your pages, you should display the most important keywords of the page in H1 text, the areas of secondary importance in H2 text and then the regular body text as normal text. You should be able to do this in any good content management system.

WARNING: Do not abuse this. Google is not easily fooled and if you make the entire text H1 then it will all be deemed unimportant. H1 text should really explain the contents of a page, not be a device to deceive users to visit your website. I would suggest that text flagged as H1 should be limited to 1-10 words per page.