Comment on WordPress SEO Theme Reviews by SEO Dave.

Stallion Responsive SEO Theme Not sure what the H1 header usage in Heatmap theme has to do with the Talian theme, but happy to compare header usage, not just H1 let’s look at all H* usage.

Talian 5 isn’t my best WordPress SEO or AdSense theme, Stallion 7 is better, but will compare both.

I’ll use your site as a Heatmap example.

Headers H1 to H6 Best SEO Practices

For all H* headers there should not be any sitewide headers, H1 through to H6 should never be used sitewide (basically you should never use the same content like the blog name in a header sitewide), on this point may WordPress themes fail.

H1 Comparison : Best SEO Practices

The H1 header for SEO reasons is generally used once per page and contains the most important keyword phrase (main SERP or very close derivative).

Heatmap Home Page : Site Title
Talian 5 Home Page : Site Title
Stallion 7 Home Page : Site Title

All use best SEO practices

Heatmap Categories : No H1 Present
Talian 5 Categories : Category Title
Stallion 7 Categories : Category Title

Stallion and Talian use best SEO practices, Heatmap fails.

Heatmap Tags : No H1 Present
Talian 5 Tags : Tags Title
Stallion 7 Tags : Tags Title

Stallion and Talian use best SEO practices, Heatmap fails.

Heatmap Single Posts and Static Pages : Post/Page Title
Talian Single Posts and Static Pages : Post/Page Title
Stallion 7 Single Posts and Static Pages : Post/Page Title

All use best SEO practices

Didn’t check 404’s, search pages can say Stallion and Talian use best SEO practices on all page types.

H2 Comparison : Best SEO Practices

The H2 header for SEO reasons is generally used at least once per page and contains important keyword phrase, important derivative keyphrases to the main SERP(s) for that page only.

Heatmap Home Page : Archived Post Titles X 8 (one for each archived post)
Talian 5 Home Page : Archived Post Titles X 8 (one for each archived post)
Stallion 7 Home Page : Archived Post Titles X 3 (one for each of the first 3 archived post)

Using same format as your home page which has 8 archived posts, for categories and tags will use 8 as the base number.

This is where Stallion starts to take the lead. Although having 8 H2 headers on the home page isn’t the end of the world it’s not ideal, with the H2 header it’s generally best practice to have a small number unless it’s a really large page, so 1, 2 or 3 H2’s is best. Pretty sure Stallion is the only WordPress theme that includes this feature. With Talian and Heatmap if your archives show 20 posts you get 20 H2 headers!

Heatmap Categories : Category Title and Archived Post Titles X 8 (one for each archived post)
Talian 5 Categories : Archived Post Titles X 8 (one for each archived post)
Stallion 7 Categories : Archived Post Titles X 3 (one for each of the first 3 archived post)

Using same format as your home page which has 8 archived posts.

Heatmap fails, puts the Category title in the first H2, this should be a H1. Talian is best SEO practices for a good WordPress SEO Theme, Stallion is THE best WordPress SEO theme and starts to take the lead SEO wise on headers.

Like with the home page having 8 H2 headers on the category page isn’t the end of the world it’s not ideal, with the H2 header it’s generally best practice to have a small number unless it’s a really large page, so 1, 2 or 3 H2’s is best. The other post titles in Stallion on archives are within H3 (up to 4 H3s), H4 (the rest).

Tags same as categories.

Heatmap Single Posts and Static Pages : Not Used (I think your H2s are added manually?)
Talian Single Posts and Static Pages : Not Used
Stallion 7 Single Posts and Static Pages : Not Used

All use best SEO practices in my expert SEO opinion. As a theme developer for posts and pages it’s best to not use the H2 header, this allows the webmaster to add a relevant H2 header manually. This does leave some SEO to the user, but SEO theme developers shouldn’t force a H2.

Getting bored now so will speed things up :-)

H3, H4, H5, H6 Comparison : Best SEO Practices

This is where it gets a little subjective, I don’t see much value in adding H5 and H6 to a theme, these headers are so deep should be left for the user to add on larger posts (many posts H5+ won’t be appropriate). H3 and H4 I use within the theme to support the main pages SERPs.

Heatmap uses sitewide H4s for widget headings, major SEO mistake
Talian 5 doesn’t have any sitewide H*s. On posts and pages H3 and H4 are used to repeat the title of the post/page
Stallion 7 doesn’t have any sitewide H*s. On posts and pages H3 and H4 are used to repeat the title of the post/page with the option to use what are part of the Stallion All In One SEO features, a set of 5 additional keyphrases that can be added to every post/page (on the edit screen). This site uses Stallion 7, look at the header usage of the main Talian 5 post. For example above the comment form there’s a H4 header “Leave a reply to WordPress SEO Ad Theme”, WordPress SEO Ad Theme is one of the Stallion All In One Keyphrases. Above the comments is a H3 “### responses to Talian WordPress SEO Theme”, Talian WordPress SEO Theme is another Stallion All In One SEO Keyphrase. This adds SEO relevance to derivative SERPs.

As mentioned earlier in Stallion on archive pages H3s and H4s are used, the archived posts titles.

As you can see Talian 5 is a good WordPress SEO theme, Stallion is the best WordPress SEO theme. Heatmap is OK, but fails in a few key areas.

Take into account this is only looking at headers, Heatmap has loads of basic SEO mistakes like using anchor text Read More, it’s not an SEO theme, not even close.

Heatmap is a good ad theme, on AdSense ad placement I don’t see any ad placement that can’t be made with Talian and Stallion. I note the main content AdSense ad on your posts isn’t wrapped by your content, that might be because you added a couple of headers to the content manually that would result in the content not wrapping (have the same issue with Talian/Stallion if you add a header high in the content : headers are block elements so break floats). On your site your home page and archives lacks a floating main content AdSense ad which will be leaving ad money on the table.

Stallion also includes Chitika, Infolinks and Kontera ad networks built in.

David