Heading tags and Squarespace

How search engines use heading tags to understand the content on your site.

Last updated January 7, 2025

Headings help visitors and search engines learn what a page is about and find the content that's relevant to them. Within a site's code, headings are automatically created with HTML heading tags, like <h1> or <h2>. Search engines look for these tags when they index your content.

Since you don't need coding or design expertise to build a Squarespace site, you don't need to add HTML markup for heading tags yourself. This guide explains how Squarespace's built-in heading tags work.

Automated heading tags

When you add or format text using our tools, heading tags are applied automatically, even if you never see the actual HTML code of a page.

Heading tags are added to your site in two ways:

  • When you format text as a heading, it automatically gets a heading tag in that page's code. For example, if you format text as Heading 2, your site's code surrounds this text with <h2> tags.
  • Your site automatically creates heading tags for other key text on your site.

Heading tags and SEO

Google and other search engines look at your heading tags to understand the content on your site and how to display it in search results. To optimize your headings for SEO, write and structure them so they help human readers and search engines find what they're looking for quickly.

As a general rule, when you format text as headings, add them in descending order (from Heading 1 to Heading 3 to funnel visitors from the broadest information to the most specific.

For more help optimizing headings, visit Increasing your site’s visibility to search engines.

Tip

Google doesn't penalize you for having multiple <h1> tags on a page, so you can use the same type of headings multiple times within a page.

Built-in heading tags

Your site automatically creates heading tags for key text on your site. For example, blog post titles might automatically have <h1> tags. This depends on which version of Squarespace your site is on and the type of text.

You can highlight any text on a page and use the toolbar icons to apply formatting. We automatically create HTML tags in your site's code for each text size:

  • <h1> - Heading 1
  • <h2> - Heading 2
  • <h3> - Heading 3
  • <h4> - Heading 4
  • <p> - Paragraph 1, 2, and 3 text

Site titles don't have a heading tag applied.

Key text on collection pages and collection item pages will be automatically formatted with heading tags. Use the table below to see how heading tags are used in these collection page layouts:

Page types

Item titles on collection pages

Item titles on item pages

Pagination on item pages

Blog

<h1>

<h1>

<h2>

Events

<h1>

<h1>

<h2>

Store

No <h> tag

<h1>

n/a

Portfolio 1 & 2

<h3>

n/a

<h2>

Portfolio 3

<h1>

n/a

<h2>

Key text on your site may be automatically formatted with heading tags. For some types of text, the tag is the same across all templates:

  • Page titles - <h1> (for templates that display them)
  • Product titles on store pages - No <h> tag
  • Product titles on individual product pages - <h1>
  • Event titles (all) - <h1>

For other types of text, the heading tag depends on the template. Use the table below to see how heading tags are used in these template families:

Template family

Site title

Blog post titles on Blog Pages

Blog post titles on post pages

Adirondack

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Avenue

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Aviator

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Bedford

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Brine

No <h> tag

No <h> tag

<h1>

Farro

No <h> tag

<h2>

<h1>

Five

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Flatiron

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Forte

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Galapagos

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Ishimoto

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Momentum

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Montauk

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Native

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Pacific

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Skye

No <h> tag

<h2>

<h2>

Supply

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Tremont

<h1>

No <h> tag

<h1>

Wells

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

Wexley

<h1>

<h1>

<h1>

York

No <h> tag

No <h> tag

<h1>

Style your site's headings

You can style your site's headings and other text in the Site styles panel.

Font styles aren't necessarily connected to HTML tags. For example, if you style your Heading 1 text, that won't affect the site title, even if your site's title uses the <h1> tag.

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Heading tags and Squarespace