Every page has exactly one H1 tag

Google treats the H1 as the primary topical signal for a page — stronger than the title tag in many ranking experiments because the H1 sits in body content rather than head metadata. A page with zero H1s gives the crawler nothing to anchor semantic relevance against, so it falls back to the largest visible text, which is often a navigation element or a sidebar heading. A page with multiple H1s (one from the layout, one from the content) dilutes the signal and fails WCAG 2.2 SC 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) screen-reader expectations, which assistive tech uses to let users jump to the page's main subject.

Put exactly one <h1> per page, inside the page-level component, describing that page's content. Move site-name headings in the layout to a <p>, a logo image, or an <h2> so they do not collide.

// app/about/page.tsx
export default function AboutPage() {
  return (
    <main>
      <h1>About Us</h1>
      {/* page content */}
    </main>
  )
}

Audit for duplicates by grepping grep -rn '<h1' app/ and confirming each page contributes exactly one.

• ID: seo-fundamentals.content-structure.h1-present

• Severity: critical

• What to look for: Examine page components and layouts for <h1> usage. Each page should have exactly one <h1>. Check both layout files (which might contain a site-wide <h1>) and page-level components. Be aware of component composition — an <h1> in a shared layout that appears on every page counts as a per-page <h1> only if the text content changes per page.

• Pass criteria: Count all page routes. For each page route, count the number of <h1> tags that would render (from both layout and page components). Each page route must render no more than 1 <h1> tag and at least 1 <h1> tag — exactly one — with meaningful, page-specific content. Do NOT pass when any page has 0 or more than 1 <h1> tag.

• Fail criteria: A page has zero <h1> tags, or a page has multiple <h1> tags (e.g., one in the layout and another in the page component), or all pages share an identical <h1> from a layout with no per-page override. Report: "X of Y pages have exactly 1 H1."

• Skip (N/A) when: Never — every web page should have one H1.

• Detail on fail: Specify the issue per page. Example: "No <h1> found on /pricing page" or "Multiple <h1> tags on /about: one in layout ('YourSite') and one in page content ('About Us')"

• Remediation: Each page should have exactly one <h1> that describes the page's primary content. If your layout includes an <h1> for the site name, consider changing it to a logo or a different heading level:

  // app/about/page.tsx
  export default function AboutPage() {
    return (
      <main>
        <h1>About Us</h1>
        {/* page content */}
      </main>
    )
  }