How do I hide H1 tag on homepage?

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illustrativedesign

New Member
I've placed an H1 tag on the home page of my website (see below). The addition of this tag has increased my SEO score from 30% to over 70% using a website which does the calculation. However, I've spotted that the tag is showing up on the top left of my page. How can I make it invisible?
 
Making it invisible and hiding it is a VERY bad idea and goes back to the days of cloaking text using the same text colour as the background, H1 tags are used for a reason and I would use it correctly and within Google's guidelines or you may find that your site disappears in the future.
 
I tried H1 tagging the word "illustration" which appears as part of the main text title of the page but the point size changed beyond my control. So instead, I inserted the tag as a separate entity on the page, but it does look somewhat awkward and stranded.
 
Google will really butt fu*k you for trying to hide content! Remember that Google considers an h1 tag as the single most important tag on a page. If it feels that it's users aren't going to get the correct information from that heading or the tag seems to be missing all together it just wont bother listing your content.

One option you may have if you really dont want a visible title is to wrap the logo in h1 tags and use 'title' and 'alt' within the logo img tags for example:

<h1><img src="linktoyourlogo.jpg" title="h1 title here" alt="h1 title here"/></h1>

The above is open to argument with some saying you're still trying to trick google while others say it's an acceptable way of utilising H tags. I personally prefer to use an H1 for its intended purpose, as a page's heading.


It's also worth noting that even attempting to rank well for a keyword as vague as 'illustration' is a complete waste of time. It's one of those words that's so heavily used across a variety of industries that you'll never even scratch the surface. Think about what keywords people might use if they were looking for your services then build really good quality content around those words. For example, if I want to outsource some work to an illustrator I might search for 'illustrator' but I'm far more likely to look for a specialist in the type of illustration I need so perhaps I'd search for 'comic book illustrator york' or 'children's illustrator leeds' as I'm confident that will find me someone who does illustration in my local area.

As a side note, the most under rated searches are for terms such as 'how do I.....' and 'where can I....'. Despite these being regularly searched for, competition is low so it's relatively easy to rank well.
 
illustrativedesign said:
I've placed an H1 tag on the home page of my website (see below). The addition of this tag has increased my SEO score from 30% to over 70% using a website which does the calculation. However, I've spotted that the tag is showing up on the top left of my page. How can I make it invisible?
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What website did you use to check this please?

I have come across H1 tag in the past but I can't remember what I did regarding this. I think I just removed it, as I didn't want it appearing randomly in the corner. Sounds like this was a bad idea.
 
So for example in Wordpress, is using H1 tags really as simple as setting the text on your homepage to Header 1? If so, from there I guess you would change the huge font size of your Header 1 in the editor?

If I am correct, the other issue would be that when typing information on the Homepage in WP, that info appears at the bottom of my website and isn't about the services I offer or what I do. I have more important info such as these further up the homepage.

Whilst I understand the theory, it is all a bit confusing for me how to make the most of it, relevantly and legally so not to piss Google off.
 
CLHB said:
Whilst I understand the theory, it is all a bit confusing for me how to make the most of it, relevantly and legally so not to piss Google off.
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I dont think anyone can win the google guessing game. The rules are changed so often its not even funny.
 
CLHB said:
So for example in Wordpress, is using H1 tags really as simple as setting the text on your homepage to Header 1? If so, from there I guess you would change the huge font size of your Header 1 in the editor?

If I am correct, the other issue would be that when typing information on the Homepage in WP, that info appears at the bottom of my website and isn't about the services I offer or what I do. I have more important info such as these further up the homepage.

Whilst I understand the theory, it is all a bit confusing for me how to make the most of it, relevantly and legally so not to piss Google off.
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You are really over thinking this mate. Remember that markup makes sense of your document, you style it with CSS. It is that simple, really.
 
Thanks, I kind of half understand what you mean.

Last year I installed the 'WordPress SEO by Yoast' plugin. I haven't had the time to go though every single thing on my site to ensure the SEO status is considered at least 'Good.'

But I presume the Home page is the most important part of my site to get it's SEO from its current 'Poor' status to 'Superb' if possible.

Screen Shot 2015-02-09 at 19.37.44.jpg

The image above is what currently needs 'fixing' on my home page. My question is, can I have more than one keyword? If so, would I just separate them with comma's? My current keyword is Graphic Designer. I know it is a common keyword, but it is just the most appropriate words to have to sum myself up in a word or two.

Now going through what the plugin has marked 'No.' I am not sure how I should correct these issues for the following reasons:

The Article Heading: This is my homepage so my Heading is simply 'Home'.

Page URL: Again this is my Homepage so the page URL is the address of my website.

Content: The content does not have the word 'graphic designer' in it, due to it being the the final bottom section of my homepage - instead I have listed a few things I have done worked on.

How would I go about correcting this? Is it a simple matter of adding more focus keywords? The fact that it is called 'Focus Keyword' and the explanation it gives when you click on the '?' gives me the impression that more than a word or two is too many.

As I am sure you can all tell by now, I haven't a clue what I am doing, anything 'code wise' or 'SEO' related that I have done correctly were all half flukes and hoping for the best.
 
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If I were you I'd look at an introductory paragraph or two above your latest work section. Start with an h1 tag giving a really good idea of what the page is about. Perhaps something like "Freelance Graphic Designer Based in xxxxxxxx" or similar. Yoast is correct in not going overboard with keywords but every page should have an h1 title. Remember that the web is about design and content.

In all honesty the best way to approach any web project is to write down what you want to say and then building a design, page and your markup around it. If you grab a WordPress template and force your content into it you aren't going to get the best results from your website. You wouldn't design a leaflet without knowing what the copy was going to be, would you?
 
Ideally, that is what I would want to do, but I simply do not know how. I don't know how to get a section of text above my latest work section, everything I type on the homepage goes in the bottom section of the site. This was and is my first ever attempt at a WP website. I don't know if you remember but my website before this was on Cargo! You helped me tremendously with it. Really appreciated it.
 
This isn't me being a prissy web developer but I genuinely believe that knowing how to code (even a simple layout) is the only way to get a decent website - apart from paying someone who knows how to of course - but I know that isn't always an option. If you lived anywhere near us I'd invite you in for a 'code bootcamp' for a day or two, get you up to speed. Genuinely though, HTML is really easy to learn. It is CSS that will leave you scratching your head! I think you should bite the bullet and give it a go. You might even surprise yourself. Plenty of designers on here taught themselves to code :thumb:
 
Agreed. I actually studied Computing and IT about 10 years ago, pretty much failed Computing but did ok in IT. That's when I knew me and coding would not get along, I just could not grasp it. But I am since 10 years older and wiser now, so maybe I will pick it up easier. Just need to find the time to be able to self-study. When ever I have had web projects in the past or if I do in the future, I'd always have a developer near by. I see it similar to illustration in the sense that whilst I can draw to a proficiency suitable for my needs, I always hire a professional illustrator when needed for a brief, rather than do the illustrations myself, as I know they can produce illustrations at a higher more and more professional standard then I can. I always compared learning to code like learning a new foreign language. I was never any good at learning other languages...
 
Aye, I see what you are saying but your talent as a designer and that of an illustrator is 'God given' (for want of a better phrase) whereas I strongly believe that anyone can learn to code given time and the right guidance. If you started slowly and don't pressurise yourself you may even enjoy it. Learn what markup means (it is no way as hard as a foreign language) first and then find out how to lay out your content using CSS.
 
Corrosive said:
I think you should bite the bullet and give it a go. You might even surprise yourself. Plenty of designers on here taught themselves to code :thumb:
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Hear hear!

I did a degree in multimedia.. which qualified me to build flash animations and websites based on tables... Everything since then, I learned myself (and with a shovel load of help from good friends like Toby). 3 years into self teaching and I do a bit of freelance web dev as well as working full time as a web developer/designer for an online training and travel company with an e-commerce turn over in excess of £1million (so must be doing something right)


If it offers any encouragement, the first website I built is still live at http://www.bramblesantiques.co.uk compared to something I built a few months ago the man behind the curtain
 
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