Quick Take: So Many H1s!

Github's Home Page

May 13, 2024

Home page fail!

Github’s home page has 4 HTML H1 elements!

So:

Every page on your website should only have one H1 element. It’s usually the title and is important for SEO since it tells Google the primary thing that your page is about.

The texts for the H1s on this page are:

• Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests…
• Provide feedback
• Saved searches
• Let’s build from here

Clearly, “Search…”, “Provide feedback”, and “Saved searches” should not be H1s! Github is effectively telling Google that the home page is about these things.

So, does it matter?

For Github, probably not - everyone who is in the sphere of coding knows what Github is, and so does Google. If they fail at a best practice it’s not a big deal.

But for you?

It’s different: You need to tell search engines what you do…

AND you need to make it catchy enough that people will want to know more.

Github’s “Let’s Build From Here” is okay.

(I use Github, but I don't really get this... it sounds a little too clever to me)

Most people arriving on this page are aware of Github and what it does.

But if you were competing against them with your own (relatively unknown) code repo solution, that title means nothing to a new site visitor.

Instead you’d call out what your product does with a pain point you’ve discovered.

If users hate Github’s key-based access, you might say:

“Code Management Without The Keys”

(not saying this is technically a good idea, haha!)

Or if users dislike the fact that Github is owned by Microsoft, you could call it out like:

“Code Repos Without The Corporate Overlord”

(I bet this would be pretty effective!)

These H1s would satisfy the tech requirements of decent SEO and help a prospect make sense of what you sell…

Just what you want!

Takeaways:

• Use one H1 per page.
• Pick an H1 that people will understand.