Are H3 tags useless for SEO?

bernard

bernard

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I've had an epiphany with the help of Surfer SEO, and I'm curious and excited to see if it will help.

Basically, I've been wondering why my sites seemed to not hit the top spots as much as the competition and I blamed it on links and page speed, but Surfer tells me the cause might be my H tags.

I have too few words in my H tags, but what I really think is the issue is that I use H3 tags too much.

I might do something like

H2 Popular widgets
-- H3 popular widget 1
--- H4 popular widget 1 subheadline
-- H3 popular widget 2
--- H4 popular widget 2 subheadline

And now I'm thinking that H3 are basically useless for this and I should just use H2 and then the subheadline should be H3.

What I've also noticed is that H3 rarely seems to show up when you're searching for that specific term in Google, despite being listable/linkable in the content. It seems like Google treats it just like any other paragraph text.

So as a consequence I will be swapping my products for H2 and adding the subheaders as H3.

The funny and stupid reason I used that structure in the first place was because I wanted to have a nice Table of Contents structure in Elementor.
 
I use H3 all the time, even H4, my posts seem to do very well ($4-$6k/mo from about 90 posts, no back linking)

Heres my exact format for an affiliate style post:

H1 12 Best Gadget for DingDongs
(intro)

H2 How to choose the best gadget for DingDongs

H2 best Gadgets for DingDongs
(two - three sentences with some keywords)

H3 product 1

H3 product 2

H3 product 3

H3 product 4

and so on...

H2 Alternatives Best Gadgets for Dingdongs

H2 How to use the Best Gadget for Dingdongs

H2 How we tested and rated our picks for the best x for y

H2 FAQ

H3 - FAQ question 1
H3 - FAQ question 2

H2 Conclusion
 
I agree with @AhFreshMeat in his assessment of how to do this. His layout is very ideal. I don't think H3's are worthless, but nesting down that deep should be reserved for things that bring relevancy (like item names, for instance) but not where keyword inclusion is of that much importance. Save that for H2's. I would call his outline above 'a perfect example'.
 
From the data correlation I've witness with SERPWoo's ZORA data H3 and H4 have their value. Using long tailed keywords in them seems to allow a boost to the main terms. H5/H6, meh.

I recommend continuing using them.
 
I don't go deeper that H4. It just adds too much confusion. If an article needs so much nesting it is better to make a new article about the deeper subtopic.
 
I only use H3 when it starts getting spammy.
Option 1 (spammy)
Topic: What Can Dogs Eat
H2 - Can dogs eat raisins?
H2 - Can dogs eat muffins?
H2 - Can dogs eat chocolates?

Option 2 (more organized)
Topic: What can dogs eat?
H2: What's ideal nutrition for dogs?
H2: What can you feed your dogs?
H3: Raisins
H3: Muffins
H3: Chocolates

This is a recent epiphany for me too, and my older articles are all on option 1. I am trying to get out of that mold and adopt more of option 2
 
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