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Changing the Font & Style of Your H1 Tags

QUESTION: (Rhonda) I am having problems changing the font size of my H1text. Is this very important? If so, how do I go about changing it?

Changing the text and/or style of an H1 tag is simple in CSS.  It does not affect anything other than how the visitor sees it though (i.e., if you use a large font, it means nothing more than a smaller font, in SEO terms or how Google sees it).

You can change the H1 tag locally or in the CSS definition file.

If you want to change all of the H1 tag settings in your entire website, you would do this in the CSS file:

h1 {
font-size: 24px;
}

You would use the h1 tag as you normally would:
<h1>This is my H1 tag</h1>

You can define a class in the CSS file which allows you to define your new style whenever you wish anywhere on the site:

.h1style {
font-size: 24px;
}

You would add this class to your h1 tag, when you wish it:

<h1 class=”h1style”>This is my H1 Tag</h1>

* Remember to add the “.” when defining it in the CSS to classify it as a class.

Finally, you can do it locally using a style attribute (without the CSS file):

<h1 style=”font-size:24px;”>This is my H1 Tag</h1>

All of the above do the exact same thing.  Their use is based on how often you use the style and how you want it defined (whether globally or locally).

Also, remember you can add other styles to the same definition (like color):

<h1 style=”font-size:24px; color:red;”>This is my H1 Tag that is Red and 24px high</h1>

I find that being able to change the styles of my text for header and other standard tags to be quite invaluable!  Knowing a little bit of CSS can go a long way.  Give this a try!

The easiest thing to try first is the local definition using the style attribute. If this is working for you, consider creating or editing your own CSS file!

Good luck!  cheers…matt


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Matthew Bredel begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlightingMy name is Matthew Bredel and as of March, 2007, I am a full-time, work-at-home internet marketer. For close to 10 years, I worked for a defense company which was an OK job, but I was so uninspired in life and frankly, I needed some more money. That is when I first discovered internet marketing! Now I admit that I didn't start making thousands in my first couple of months (in fact, I lost my shirt!), but I finally saw the "internet light"...

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Making Anchor Text Work for SEO

August 12th, 2010 . by Matthew Bredel . Tweet This!
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(Britt) I am not clear about how keywords and links are supposed to look like on a website or blog.
So far, I have italicized keywords and I think this is how search engines identify them. URLs and phrases I have connected to their links, but they way they come out on the blog is not highlighted and not underlined. I wonder if I should bold them and also underline them with the underline editor.

Hey Britt,

Your intention is RIGHT (at least with backlinks) but your execution may be a problem.  Let me know explain.

First, anchor text is extremely important when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization).  This is the highlighted text that people can click on.  It is cool because it can hide an ugly URL, but more importantly, it provides search engines (like Google) a correlation between keywords (words that people may search for in a search engine) and the landing page (the page that your link is pointing to).  Using keyword-rich, relevant anchor text is KEY to ranking high in Google search. 

Quick Note:  Italics may add a little bit to the on-page SEO, but really doesn’t do very much for optimization!

Now to your question.  My first suggestion is to ALWAYS use a WYSIWYG editor to do your writing, if you are not well hearsed in HTML.  These editors allow you to select a word (or more), highlight them, and then assign a destination web page (this button usually looking like a chain “link”).

In general HTML, links are created using anchor tags:

<a href=”http://yourdestinationsite.com”>Your Anchor Text</a>

The structure (above) uses an href parameter which you assign to your destination URL.  Then, you place the anchor text.  Then you close it with an closing tag:  </a>.  Again, this is not meant to be an HTML lesson, but a quick description on what hyperlinks look like in raw HTML.

Now your other question concerns:  “Should I underline it?” 

No need to.  Yes, the “standard convention” to hyperlinks is that they are usually underlined and blue.  But there are simple ways to change the look of these links using Cascaded Style Sheets (CSS).  Many designed themes, for example, may change this for aethetic reasons.  They can very easily remove the underline and/or change the color. 

This doesn’t change the link at all!

It simply changes how we see it.  From an SEO stand-point, it doesn’t hurt a bit.  From a conversion stand-point, maybe…it depends on whether this new style identifies that text as a link (like a different color shade, a background color, etc.).  You decide whether it looks like a link or not.

And if you are not sure if it is a link or not, just click it!  If it doesn’t take you anyway, then it is probably not linked correctly.

Hope this helps!  cheers…matt

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To learn more about SEO Basics, visit http://www.SeoExciter.com.

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