Free H1, H2, H3 Heading Checker

WordPress

1. In the post editor, look at the right sidebar Outline panel (Block Editor) — it shows the heading hierarchy live.
2. For full audits, run the published URL through this tool. WordPress themes often wrap site titles in H1, conflicting with the post H1.
3. If you find duplicate H1s, edit your theme's header.php to change the site logo to

   instead of an H1.

Webflow

1. In Designer, every text element has a tag dropdown. Check that your page title is H1 and section headers are H2/H3 sequentially.
2. Headings inside Collection items inherit the tag you set in the template — change there, not on each item.
3. Run published pages through this tool to catch issues that only show up after CMS data fills in.

Ghost

1. Ghost posts use Markdown-style heading levels (# = H1, ## = H2, etc). Convention is to skip ## the first H1 since the post title becomes H1 automatically.
2. If you accidentally start your post body with another # heading, you get duplicate H1s — switch to ## for sections.
3. Verify with this tool after publishing. Ghost themes are usually clean but custom themes can introduce extra H1s.

Next.js / React custom builds

1. Use semantic <h1>, <h2>, <h3> in your JSX. Avoid wrapping styled text in <div>s when an H tag would be correct.
2. For dynamic content (CMS-driven pages), confirm getStaticProps or getServerSideProps returns headings in the HTML, not just JSON for client hydration.
3. Run each page route through this checker after deploy — JS-only sites are the most likely to have hidden heading issues.

Squarespace / Wix

1. These platforms hide tag selection in style panels. Look for "Heading 1", "Heading 2" labels in text editor toolbars.
2. Templates often hardcode the site logo or top nav as H1 — limited fix without code injection.
3. Audit with this tool. If duplicate H1s are unfixable in your plan tier, accept it as a known limitation and focus on the rest of the outline being clean.

Tool returns "no headings found" but the page has them

Cause: Page is a single-page app that injects content via JavaScript after initial render. Server HTML has no headings.

Fix: For SPA pages, server-render or pre-render the headings (Next.js getStaticProps, Nuxt asyncData, etc.). If the headings are dynamically generated and cannot be SSRed, accept that this checker will miss them and use a Lighthouse audit run from a real browser instead.

Multiple H1s detected

Cause: A theme or template wraps both the site logo and the page title in H1, or you copy-pasted content with its own H1 still wrapping the title.

Fix: Pick the H1 that represents the actual topic of this page. Demote the other to H2 (if it is a section title) or wrap in a non-heading element like <p class="logo"> for a logo. Test in Search Console&apos;s URL Inspection to confirm.

No H1 detected

Cause: Designer styled the page title with custom typography in a <div>, never wrapping it in a heading tag.

Fix: Add an H1 around the page title. The visual styling can stay the same — semantic tag is what Google reads. This is a quick 1-line CMS edit that often shifts ranking on long-tail queries.

Heading skips a level (H2 -> H4)

Cause: A developer or content team picked H4 because it "looks the right size", ignoring that there should be H3s between them.

Fix: Either insert missing H3s or demote the H4 to H3. Use CSS to control visual size (font-size: 1rem on H3 is fine), and keep the tag semantically correct.

Heading text contains entity-encoded characters in output

Cause: You typed an apostrophe or ampersand in the CMS, and the renderer encoded it.

Fix: No fix needed — the encoding is fine. Search engines handle &amp; and & identically. The output preserves the raw HTML for transparency.

Page has 30+ H2s

Cause: You used H2s as visual subheadings throughout a long article, without an H3 layer.

Fix: Group related H2s under broader H2s, demoting the inner ones to H3. A 30-H2 page reads as a flat list of equal-weight topics; structure matters more than count.

Headings include navigation, footer, and sidebar items

Cause: Your theme uses H2 or H3 tags for "Recent Posts" widgets, footer column titles, etc.

Fix: Convert non-content headings to <p> with a heading-like CSS class. Reserve real heading tags for the article body. Sidebars and footers should not contribute to the page outline.

Tool times out on a large URL

Cause: The page is huge or hosted somewhere with strict rate-limiting.

Fix: Wait 30 seconds and retry. If it persistently fails, copy the page HTML manually (View Source, save) and inspect headings yourself with browser DevTools.