We’ve looked at font size versus H tags in a couple of tests now. We wanted to run one more test and put these concepts to rest for a bit. A test that we get asked to run regularly is setting up a fake semantic structure using font sizes to approximate not just H1s, but H2s, and H3s; but to simulate all the H tags on a page. The idea here is that, the previous tests were just looking at one to one match ups. The argument goes that if you have an entire page that has correct semantic structure through fonts, it will perform just as well as a page setup with H tags. Will faking it work? We test that out.
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Following up one more test on this and a lot of people has asked me, you could do 1:1, you could do h1 against text, what about if you have done the entire semantic structure. Your h1, h2, and your h3 are all just font size and are done appropriately and Google can see that it is important text because the font size and it is semantically correct and it kind of goes in an anticipated semantic structure. Will that beat the htags? Maybe 1:1 that is fine but when you have the whole structure lined up correctly, you should be good right? That is what this test is looking at.
In this situation, we got our h1, h2, and the h3 which is below. They have the correct tags and we approximate it with font size 6, 5, and 4, and in the not surprise of the century. The one with the real tags shoot up. Again, just reiterating what I said before, you really need these tags,t hey are not just for fun, we are not saying it just to say it. I think we have looked at these things a bunch of different ways, a bunch of real objections on from clients, web designer’s like oh I don’t want to change my page, it looks too pretty or that is such a pain in the ass, why can’t I just use h3s and actually trying to go in and do manually on these font sizes. It is actually super important. It is the kind of thing that if you don’t set up correctly, I think it is going to hamper all the other things that you are trying to do and in the end you end up with unhappy clients. I put my foot down on the design and how the site is structured at the beginning rather than trying to explain at the end when you are losing the client and you are not getting results that you are anticipating.