Writing Headers

Write headings that are brief and clearly expressed, being mindful of narrow screens where text might wrap to another line.

Use the "down" style of initial capitalization (also known as "sentence case") for only the first word and any proper nouns; other words are all lower case.

Writing H1s

It is important to note that you should only have one H1 on each page. The H1 is the main header for a webpage. Take, for example, a program page on a higher ed website. The header might simply be “MBA.” However, you would want to get more granular than this so that your H1 can include more keywords. For example, you might instead name the H1 “MBA Programs” or “MBA Degrees” as both “degrees” and “programs” are top keywords. There are no character limits for H1s, so you can make the headers as long as you’d like. You may opt to make the header a sentence, such as: “Our MBA Programs Open Up Endless Career Advancement Opportunities.” Remember, you should only have one H1 on each page.

Writing H2s

H2s serve as subheaders on a webpage. Remember, you can have more than one H2 on each page. It’s important that H2s are relevant to the page’s content. They are good to use when you have long blocks of content that you want to break up for readability purposes. For example, you may want to break up sections of body text on your main Admissions page for undergraduate, graduate, and transfer. Like with H1s, it is always a good idea to include keywords in your H2s. Therefore, if your main keyword was “admissions,” then you would want to label your H2s: Undergraduate Admissions, Graduate Admissions, and Transfer Admissions. 

If you opt to use a longer, sentence-length H1, you may also consider doing the same for your first H2. For example:

H1: Our Executive MBA Programs Open Up Endless Career Advancement Opportunities

H2: With many executive MBA degrees to choose from, you can further your career in accounting, finance, healthcare, and more!

A note on keywords

The above H1 and H2 include the following keywords: executive MBA, executive MBA programs, executive MBA degrees. Note how they are woven into these headers seamlessly. While it is important that your keywords appear in your headers, it is also important that they read naturally. You don’t want to keyword stuff and have them sound grammatically incorrect. 

Also note that, while “accounting,” “finance,” and “health care,” are not part of the list of keywords you’re targeting, it is smart to list top program names, as students get more granular as their search process goes on.