H1, H2 and H3 headings: how to use them for SEO

The H1 is the main heading a visitor sees at the top of a page, written in HTML as <h1>. H2 headings mark the main sections and H3 headings the subsections, like the outline of a document.

Headings help people scan a page, and they help search engines and AI systems understand how the content is organized and which passage answers which question.

What Google says

Google's SEO Starter Guide says the number and order of headings don't matter for Search, and there's no ideal number of headings. Use them to make the page easy to read. So skipping from H2 to H4 won't cost you rankings, and a page with two H1s isn't penalized; a clear structure is still better for readers and for tools that extract passages.

A practical pattern

<h1>Root canal cost in India</h1>
  <h2>Typical prices by city</h2>
  <h2>What changes the price</h2>
    <h3>Tooth position</h3>
    <h3>Crown material</h3>
  <h2>Is it covered by insurance?</h2>

• One H1 that states the topic, close to the title tag.
• H2s phrased the way people ask, so each section answers one question.
• H3s only where a section really has parts.
• Real text in headings, not images of text.