No Subheadings

Your page has content but lacks proper subheadings to break it into digestible sections. This impacts both user experience and how search engines interpret your page structure. Without subheadings, visitors struggle to scan your content, and Google can't easily identify your key topics.

What Are Subheadings?

Subheadings are HTML heading tags, specifically h2, h3, and beyond, that create a hierarchical content structure on your page. Think of them as chapter titles in a book that help readers navigate and understand the organization of information.

In HTML, subheadings follow the main h1 tag. The h2 tag represents your primary section headers, while h3 tags represent subsections within those h2 sections. This creates a logical outline that both humans and search engines can follow.

Subheadings live in your page's HTML structure, typically wrapping short, descriptive phrases that summarize the content below them. They appear visually larger than body text and create natural breaking points in your content.

The SEO Impact

Missing subheadings creates multiple problems that directly affect your search performance.

User Experience Degradation: Visitors scanning your page can't quickly find the information they need. Research shows that 79% of users scan web pages rather than reading word-for-word. Without subheadings, you lose these scanners immediately, increasing bounce rates and reducing time on page, both negative ranking signals.

Search Engine Understanding: Google's algorithms analyze heading structure to understand content hierarchy and topical relevance. When you use descriptive h2 tags, you're essentially telling Google, "These are my main topics." Pages without this structure miss opportunities to rank for related keywords embedded in those subheadings.

Featured Snippet Opportunities: Many featured snippets pull content from well-structured sections with clear h2 tags. Without subheadings, Google can't easily extract and display your content in these premium positions.

Accessibility Issues: Screen readers rely heavily on heading structure to help visually impaired users navigate pages. Missing subheadings means these users must listen to your entire page linearly, creating a poor experience that violates WCAG accessibility guidelines.

Common Causes

Several typical scenarios lead to pages without proper subheadings.

Long-Form Content Without Structure: Writers often draft content as one continuous narrative without considering visual hierarchy. This happens frequently with blog posts written in document editors before being transferred to CMS platforms.

Template Limitations: Some website themes or page builders don't make it easy to add heading tags. Users might create visual emphasis using bold text or larger fonts instead of proper HTML heading elements, which provides no SEO benefit.

Copy-Pasted Content: When migrating content from other sources or copying from documents, heading formatting often gets lost, leaving plain text where structured headings should exist.

Homepage and Landing Pages: Marketing teams sometimes create design-first pages with visual elements but no semantic HTML structure, prioritizing aesthetics over proper markup.

How Zignalify Detects This

Our crawler visits each page on your website and captures the complete rendered HTML, including content loaded dynamically by JavaScript. We then analyze the document structure looking specifically for h2 heading elements.

Zignalify converts your page content into a standardized format and scans for heading patterns. If we find zero h2 tags on a content page, we flag it as "No Subheadings."

We check both desktop and mobile versions of your pages because heading structure should remain consistent across devices. We specifically look for h2 tags because they represent your primary section dividers, the most critical level for content organization after your main h1 title.

Step-by-Step Fix

The solution involves adding proper HTML heading tags to structure your content logically.

Problem:

<p>
  This is all my content in one long paragraph without any structure or breaks
  to help readers scan and find what they need quickly.
</p>

Solution:

<h2>Key Benefits</h2>
<p>This section explains the main advantages...</p>

<h2>How It Works</h2>
<p>This section describes the process...</p>

<h2>Getting Started</h2>
<p>This section provides next steps...</p>

Platform-Specific Guidance:

WordPress: In the block editor (Gutenberg), click the plus icon and select the "Heading" block. Set the heading level to "H2" in the block settings. For Classic Editor users, highlight your text and select "Heading 2" from the formatting dropdown.

Shopify: In the rich text editor for product descriptions or pages, use the formatting toolbar to select "Heading 2" for your section titles. For custom sections in themes, edit your theme code to use <h2> tags in your liquid templates.

Next.js/React: Use semantic JSX elements in your components. Replace generic <div> wrappers with proper heading tags like <h2 className="section-title">Your Section</h2>. Ensure your component structure creates a logical heading hierarchy.

Best Practices

Go beyond simply fixing the error with these optimization strategies.

Create Descriptive Headings: Use keyword-rich, descriptive phrases that accurately summarize the section content. "Benefits of Email Marketing" is better than just "Benefits."

Maintain Logical Hierarchy: Never skip heading levels. Follow h1 with h2, and use h3 for subsections within h2 content. Don't jump from h1 to h3.

Aim for Balance: Include 3-5 main h2 sections for typical blog posts (1,000-1,500 words). Longer content needs more structure. If a section exceeds 300 words, consider adding h3 subsections.

Use Question-Based Headings: Especially for informational content, frame h2 tags as questions your audience asks. This increases chances of appearing in voice search results and featured snippets.

Make Them Scannable: Users should be able to read just your headings and understand your complete argument or content flow. Each heading should stand alone as meaningful.

Test Accessibility: Use browser developer tools to view your document outline. Tools like WAVE or axe DevTools can verify your heading structure meets accessibility standards.

FAQs

How many H2 tags should a page have?

There's no fixed rule, but aim for one h2 tag every 200-400 words as a general guideline. The key is logical organization, not hitting a specific number. A 500-word page might need 2-3 h2 tags, while a 2,000-word guide might need 6-8. Focus on creating natural content breaks rather than forcing headings.

Can I use H3 tags without H2 tags?

No, this violates proper HTML hierarchy and accessibility standards. Heading levels should never skip. Always start with h1 for your main title, use h2 for primary sections, and only use h3 tags within h2 sections. Screen readers and search engines expect this logical structure.

Will adding subheadings alone improve my rankings?

Subheadings are one factor among hundreds in Google's algorithm. They won't single-handedly boost rankings, but they improve multiple ranking signals including user engagement metrics, content relevance scoring, and accessibility. Combined with quality content, proper subheadings contribute to better overall SEO performance and increased organic visibility.