What are H1 tags? Do I need H1 tags on my Square Online website? How do I use them?

[dianad]

The title of this post has been edited from the original: H1 header

We recently did an SEO audit on our site that we created through Weebly via Square, and found that it is missing H1 headers.  Customer service says H1 headers are not available at this time. There appears to be some mixed messaging about whether it is critical to have those or not -- more recent articles seem to indicate it's ok not to have them. We are newbies to all of this, but of course want to make sure our site is optimized for traffic. Anyone know about H1 headers, Weebly and google ranking?

[MuseBelts · Accepted solution]

If you have a website that that is a local business serving the local community, you probably can get by without H Tags. 

But if you are a business that has a world-wide audience with clients across the globe it is highly recommended by hundreds of SEO organizations to have proper H tags. Bing and Google, also recommend H tags for the purpose of gaining in search rankings. I have read dozens of papers of SEO and all say H tags are recommended.

[MuseBelts]

When I did all that as explained,  and that process did NOT add any H tags. I did the Bing Meta tag verification exactly to the T and the Bing did an audit afterward and told me that I in fact had NO H tags. I contacted Bing Tech support and the man there looked at my site and concluded that I had ZERO H tags. I have all the communications between me and them verifying what I am saying . 

[MuseBelts]

I will be honest with you. I had the same problem more than a year ago with the Square Online website,. You can forget about getting H tags on your website, I contacted the tech support for more than 6 months. I made more than a dozen phone calls and was ignored and told that I dont need H tags. That goes against nearly every SEO expert including Google tech support. NOT one tech support person would help me. The platform does not support and will not support H tags. Even if you went to the Square store to buy a program, you wont be able to install into the platform. 

I ended up dropping Square Online Web site platform and went to WIX. Far better platform with superior SEO capabilities. I wasted far too much time dealing with this problem with Square and tech support in which they do not intend to fix this serious issue. 

[dianad]

If we were to make the switch to another provider like Wix (which, I can't even begin to think of the time involved in that?) will it seamlessly integrate with our Square inventory?

[MuseBelts]

During the 6-8 months of trying desperately to get Square to fix their platform, I began researching other platforms. I did not see one that "seamlessly" integrated my Square inventory. Yes, it was time-consuming, but what mattered most was having FULL SEO capabilities. I sell internationally and require FULL SEO abilities to get found.

I have a large inventory, colors, sizes, styles it took me about 3-4 days to add.   I have photos of all my products and I copy and pasted descriptions. I did it systematically. It really wasn't bad. Now I have a website with proper H Tags that Google and Bing presently still use for search rankings.

It was worth the perceived trouble for me. I got simply exasperated with Square Tech support and not getting answers to my emails. The community moderators really didn't do anything other than tell me that they will pass the suggestion onto someone higher. But nothing got done. 

It was worth leaving to Wix for me.

[dianad]

Does your new site integrate with your Square inventory? We have a brick and mortar, so we definitely need an online site that is connected to that. Also, after changing did you see a bump in traffic and sales to your site? Ie, do you feel like having the full SEO functions helped?

[MuseBelts]

No, it does not integrate. I have not found any other platform that will as of yet that will integrate the Square inventory with a competing platform.  I would have done it. I know the work involved. hence my wasted time trying to convince Square Online Tech support to fix it. It was a hope I had because I know the transition is arduous.  I still use Square as a payment gateway.

And yes my bump in traffic improved. 

To answer your last query, I sell internationally. I have clients in 39 countries so I have to have not only have full SEO abilities I also have to have a multi-language site. I will set up multi-LANGUAGE soon. That was simply impossible with Square Online. 

If you were a local ice cream vendor, of a local alteration service, or a local library, you really would not need full SEO capabilities. But if your market is worldwide you HAVE to have all the bells and whistles of a full SEO.

[MuseBelts]

I am self-educated on building websites. In my 13 years in the business selling my products, I built my website 3x. I was NOT able to integrate with the Square inventory. 

Also, it took me 3-4 days to make the transition to Wix. For me that was no problem. Uploading inventory, photos, descriptions, policies, setting up payment gateway, etc

[tylerbones1313]

I have no idea if this will reach anyone but hope it helps.  I know of the many SEO limitation of Square Online.  H1 tags are most concerning issue, but also all seo report tell me there are zero word on my site not so check it for yourself https://dragon-figurines.square.site/ 

But there is wonderful news that does work. Goto Google Search Console URL Inspection tool and enter product pages one at a time. They look like this: https://dragon-figurines.square.site/product/pink-fairy-magical-unicorn-figurine/59?cp=true&sa=false... Reduce it to this (which is same thing): https://dragon-figurines.square.site/product/pink-fairy-magical-unicorn-figurine/59 as the picture shows I qualify for product snippets and I am continually adding them daily.