You know what WordPress headings are — they’re those blocks of type that get
A Lot Bigger
. . . or quite a bit smaller. . .
Sure, you should use them to make the important things on your page stand out. But did you also know that Google and other search engines pay attention to them?
There are two main reasons to use Headings instead of just making your text bold or italic:
- Appearance and Readability
- Search Rankings
How to Make WordPress Headings
If you use the Visual Editor. . .
#1. In your Add New Post page, select the Visual tab.
#2. Click the show/hide kitchen sink button.
Notice the new line of buttons that appears.
#3. Click the Paragraph Dropdown box.
#4. Note your choices.
The dropdown includes
- Paragraph
- Address
- Preformatted
- Heading 1
- Heading 2
- Heading 3
- Heading 4
- Heading 5
- Heading 6
Today we’re interested in Heading 1 – 6.
#6. Highlight the text you want to use as a headline.
#7. Click the dropdown box and select the size headline to apply.
If you use the Text Editor
#1. In your Add New Post page, select the Text tab.
Notice you don’t have a lot of buttons to choose from, and there’s nothing comparable to the kitchen sink button in the Visual Editor.
So you’ve got to know just the tiniest little bit of code.
For Heading 1, use h1, and for Heading 2, use h2.
You get the idea.
#2. Type the heading code.
If you want to use a Heading 3, for example, type this:
The first tag is known as the “open” tag.
Then, to put a stop to the heading, you need to add a “closing” tag. It’s exactly the same, with the addition of one character, the slash.
And here’s what that Heading 3 looks like to the reader on this site
(every theme handles headings differently– this is Heading 6).
To get a sense of what each heading looks like, just type out the same line of text six times, and apply each of the different headings.
