Heading Structure Checker

How it works

What we check

• H1 presence and count — Confirms the page has exactly one H1. Pages with zero H1s leave search engines guessing at the main topic; multiple H1s dilute it.
• Heading hierarchy (no skipped levels) — Verifies levels descend in order — H1 → H2 → H3 — without skipping (e.g. an H2 followed directly by an H4). Skipped levels break the document outline that crawlers and assistive tech rely on.
• Full H1–H6 outline — Extracts every heading in source order so you can see your real content structure, not how it looks styled in a browser.
• Empty headings — Flags heading tags with no text (often left behind by page builders or used purely for spacing), which add noise to the outline and confuse screen readers.
• Heading text and length — Surfaces the actual text of each heading so you can spot vague labels like 'Welcome' or over-stuffed headings. There's no hard character limit, but concise, descriptive headings (roughly under ~70 characters) read best in outlines and snippets.
• Real headings vs. styled text — Only counts true <h1>–<h6> elements. Big bold text styled with CSS isn't a heading to a crawler, so this catches pages that look structured but aren't.

Common issues we catch

• Multiple H1s on one page — Common with themes that wrap the logo, page title, and a hero banner all in H1s. It splits the page's primary signal across several elements instead of one clear topic statement.
• No H1 at all — Some templates render the main title as a styled <div> or H2. To a crawler the page has no H1, so its strongest on-page topic signal is missing entirely.
• Skipped heading levels — Jumping from H2 to H4 (often because H4 'looked the right size') breaks the outline. Screen-reader users navigating by heading level hit a gap, and the logical structure search engines build is incomplete.
• Headings used for visual size, not structure — Picking H3 because the font is the size you want — rather than because it's a third-level subsection — produces an outline that doesn't match the content. Style with CSS instead.
• Empty or whitespace-only headings — Page builders frequently leave behind empty heading tags for spacing. They look fine in a browser but add meaningless nodes to the machine-readable outline.
• JavaScript-injected headings — Headings added by client-side JavaScript may be missing from the initial HTML. Bots that don't fully render JS (and your own quick view-source) won't see them, so a heading that's visible on screen can be invisible to a crawler.
• Duplicate H1 and title tag mismatch — The H1 and the <title> don't have to be identical, but a generic H1 ('Home') paired with a keyword-rich title wastes the H1's value. Conflicting messages weaken both.

Where this matters

• Google & Bing — Both use heading structure as one signal for understanding page topic and sub-topics. A clean H1→H2→H3 outline helps them parse what each section is about.
• Screen readers (JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver) — Heading navigation is one of the primary ways blind and low-vision users move through a page. A logical, gap-free heading order is essential for them — not optional.
• WCAG 2.1 / accessibility audits — Success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and the heading guidance in 2.4.6/2.4.10 are commonly checked in accessibility audits; bad heading order is a frequent finding.
• WordPress, Shopify, Wix & page builders — Themes and builders (Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg blocks) often auto-assign heading levels in ways that produce multiple H1s or skipped levels — exactly what this tool surfaces.
• Featured snippets & 'On this page' jump links — Clear headings improve your odds of headings being pulled into list/step snippets and power the in-page jump links Google sometimes shows.