More suggestions:

10. A theme setting that allows you to toggle between H2 and H3 on modules, while on the home page and category pages.

I will try to implement this conditional logic on my own but it would be great if the theme provided this support!

11. Add rel=”next” and rel=”prev” tags.

At the bottom of posts on the Next Article and Previous Article links, add the rel=”next” and rel=”prev” tags. This is suggested by Google: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en

More to come.

Curious Autobox,

What H4 elements do you want to change to H3? When I look at this Newspaper site:
http://www.webrankinfo.com/outils/balises-h1-h6.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoconutoilpost.com%2Fcoconut-oil-benefits%2Fcoconut-oil-treatment-cure-cold-sores%2F

I don’t see H4 elements that should be changed to H3.

If I were you, I’d do the following:

– Make sure H1 and H2 are on the home page and category pages.
– On pages and posts, make sure that H2 is only used in the article content.
– Make sure H2 is not used in any sidebar or widget. Use H3 in widgets that contain links to posts.

There are a few more optimizations I plan to do. I’ll share them in a moment.

Thanks Bogdan.

I will give the conditional logic a try! I will also share all of my SEO tweaks.

Autobox,

It’s good to known that the HTML5 hierarchy is good now. When I tested Newspaper a while back, it wasn’t 100% correct.

Thanks guys.

I asked this question because, if the affected modules are displayed on posts via sidebars, mega menu, footers, etc., this would not be good for SEO in my opinion. On posts, I believe H2 should only be used within the article, not anywhere else.

I’m considering using Newspaper for a new project and I want to do the H3>H2 and H4>H3 change on the home page and category pages, and not on posts or pages.

• This reply was modified 9 years by TechRanker. Reason: missed a word

Andrel, does the H3 to H2 change you provided affect only the home page and archive pages? Or does it also affect posts and pages as well?

JohnS,

Are you using Yoast SEO by chance? If so, go to Yoast Settings > Titles and Metas > Taxonomies. See if “Archive” is there, if so, try removing it.

More code:


<?php
if(is_archive())
// write your code here ...
?>


https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/is_archive

Let us know if it works! Good Luck!

1. I posted pseudo code, not actual php. You’ll have to Google for the correct syntax. Here’s a code snippet from TechRanker.net theme’s header.php:

<?php if( is_home() || is_front_page() ) echo '<h1>'; else echo '<h2>'; ?>

2. I don’t have the Newspaper theme files handy but here’s a suggestion. Find the files for the blocks you plan to use and search those files for <H3>, <H4>, etc. Then use something similar to the code above to perform your conditional logic.

If you can figure out how to add these changes to a child theme instead of editing the actual theme files, that would be preferred. Otherwise, you will have to reapply these changes every time the theme is updated.

3. On pages, posts, and other content pages, <H2> should only be used by YOU the content writer, not the theme.

On the home page, archive pages, and other non content pages, <H2> can be used by the theme itself.

On this post:
https://godhelpusall.com/brexit-bilderberg-one-world-government-bbc-bias

The <H2> tag is now being used in the sidebar. The <H2> tag tells Google what your post is about. Right now, you are telling Google that all of your posts are about this:

<H2>: Social Media Connections
<H2>: Trending Alternative News
<H2>: In Other News
<H2>: Follow Us

This is SEO suicide. The <H2> tag should not be used by ANY theme on posts, pages, or other content pages. It’s ok for a theme to use <H2> on the home page, archive pages, or other non-content pages.

Instead of changing all <H4> to <H2>, you need some conditional logic like this pseudo code below:

IF IsHomePage or IsArchivePage THEN <H2> ELSE <H3>;

(<H3> in the sidebar works for me)

I forget how Newspaper works exactly but alternatively, if you use block templates or modules exclusively for the home page and archive pages (and not on posts and pages), you can change the header tag on only those block templates or modules. On posts and pages, use blocks that use <H4> or preferably <H3>.

Np problem, Kevin. lol

Regarding the SEO themes I’ve used, none of them are ‘magical’. I think you will find them quite limited compared to Newspaper, which is why I stay interested in Newspaper updates. Here they are:

http://themeforest.net/item/sahifa-responsive-wordpress-news-magazine-newspaper-theme/2819356
http://my.studiopress.com/themes/metro/
http://my.studiopress.com/themes/magazine/

I like these themes because I know I can use them to rank for competitive keywords on sites with weak backlink profiles, i.e. brand new sites.

If I had time, I would modify the Newspaper theme myself. If I could sell the mod, that might make it worth my time. 😉

Curious @Kevin… are you ranking on page one of google for competitive keywords? If so, are you willing to share any of these keywords? I ask because I’m interested in the types of keywords SEM Rush misses. If you don’t want to share, no worries.

Btw @Kevin,

I see in another post that your site is: https://godhelpusall.com. According to SEM Rush, you aren’t ranking for any competitive keywords:
https://www.semrush.com/info/godhelpusall.com

SEM Rush doesn’t track all keywords but not ranking any competitive keywords could indicate that you should look into your SEO practices.

@Kevin,

I don’t want to advertise other themes here as that would be rude. 🙂 Send me a message on twitter: @TechRanker.

As others have said, the theme alone doesn’t achieve SEO success for you. You need to know how to do keyword research, how to analyze the competition, how to configure Yoast SEO properly, and how to create SEO optimized articles. This all assumes you have a good niche (i.e. you’re not writing bout Palm Pilots. 🙂 ).

Conventional SEO wisdom is that you don’t want to push down content you want to rank for with left sidebars, excessive CSS code, Java Script, etc. A good test would be to choose an article you have that ranks well in google, give that article its own long, custom left sidebar, and see if this affects your organic results. I haven’t tested this because I don’t find left sidebars appealing enough to be worth the risk.

Site structure does affect SEO. If you don’t want Google to try to rank content in your navigational menus, sidebars, ad boxes, author box, comments section, footer, etc., you need to tell Google where these things are using proper HTML5 structure. When and where the theme uses header tags is also extremely important.

If a site has Yoast SEO properly configured, has SEO optimized articles, and ranks for competitive keywords, that site’s organic results will still be negatively impacted if it switches from an SEO optimized theme to a non SEO optimized them. (The exception to this is cases where a site has a strong backlink profile. Strong off-page SEO and overcome poor on-page SEO)

@Bogdan B.,

Newspaper is the most functional AND visually appealing theme I’ve ever tested. Most themes are one or the other. Newspaper is both. Unfortunately, until the SEO issues are resolved, I can’t use this theme.

The last time I checked Newspaper’s HTML5 implementation, it didn’t appear to be 100%. In the thread below I suggested some HTML5 changes:
https://forum.tagdiv.com/topic/feature-requests-and-suggested-improvements/

Here’s another thread questioning Newspaper’s HTML5 implementation:
https://forum.tagdiv.com/topic/newspapers-html5-outline-does-not-seem-right/

If these HML5 issues still exist, it’s going to be harder to rank pages with this theme compared to ranking the same content in another theme that implements HTML5 correctly. With the same content and same optimized on-page SEO, Newspaper caused my organic results to drop.

This stuff isn’t hard to fix. You just need someone with proven experience with SEO, ranking pages, and theme development to review Newspaper.

I’m not posting this to give you grief. I genuinely would like to see the SEO improvements done so that I can use this theme again.

Of note, most of the top selling themes on Theme Forest have HTML5, header tag, and/or alt tag issues when I checked last year. One of the top themes was <H1> multiple times on a post and was using <H2> in the sidebar! lol

Rehman,

Thanks for sharing this tool. Unfortunately for me, the tool doesn’t appear to work on https sites so I can’t test my main blog.

When I tested an old, unused blog I have, the results were what I would expect:

URL:

http://oracleodi.com/faq/what-is-oracle-data-integrator-odi/

Test Link:

https://gsnedders.html5.org/outliner/process.py?url=http%3A%2F%2Foracleodi.com%2Ffaq%2Fwhat-is-oracle-data-integrator-odi%2F

Result:

1. What is Oracle Data Integrator (What is ODI)?
>>>1. Oracle Data Integrator Download
>>>2. Oracle Data Integrator Resources
>>>>>>1. Speak Your Mind Cancel reply

Which corresponds to:

1. H1
>>>1. H2
>>>2. H2
>>>>>>3. H3

The presence of the “Cancel reply” text is actually correct. This text is hidden on our pages via CSS.

It appears that Outline Tool indicates that the Newspaper Theme’s HTML5 implementation needs to be reworked. I had my own HTML5 questions about the theme detailed here: https://forum.tagdiv.com/topic/feature-requests-and-suggested-improvements/

I wish I had the time to troubleshoot this issue.

Btw, I like the way smart lists work now.

No SEO changes? 🙁

Thanks Email! One thing to note…

The big sites, news sites, and established authority blogs benefit from other ranker factors and don’t rely on on-page SEO as much as us niche site owners. Thus, the information gleaned from their code might not be as helpful. I will email contact(a)tagdiv.com a couple things I hope you will add to your SEO analysis. Thanks again for your support.

9. HTML 5 SEO suggestions/questions:

9.1 Could you wrap the main menu with the <nav></nav> tag?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/nav

9.2 Should the <header></header> tag contain the top menu, logo, top ad banner, and main menu?

I see that Newspaper does this: <article><header><h1>Title</h1></header> content </article>

One theme I have does this: <header> logo, menu, ad, search </header><article><header><h1>Title</h1></header> content </article>

Another them does this: <header> logo, menu, ad, search </header><article><h1>Title</h1> content </article>

In my opinion, <header> would tell Google the information in this tag is not the content. Thus I would go with the third option. I am not certain of this however. Any thoughts?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/header

9.3 Should the entire sidebar be wrapped with the <aside> tag? I think Newspaper widgets are individually wrapped with <aside> but this does not happen for all widgets. Two of my other themes wrap the sidebar with <aside>.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/aside

Yoast SEO has had numerous bugs, check the changelog sometime to see how many bugs they have had. My contention was simply that using Yoast SEO as a “comparator” to anything else related to bugs, is not a good metric.

Total number of changelog items is clearly not a good metric for determining how buggy software is. There’s no way for a developer to anticipate how their software will work once it’s installed in a million websites. Without an analysis of the major releases, subsequent point releases, and any discovered negative impacts to the entire user base, you can’t just call WordPress SEO plugin “buggy”.

H1 is useful on home page; H2 also useful for topical elements such as section heads, but not so much for story heads ad they are ephemeral; meaning, they change daily, so they are not sticky and therefore not relevant to long-term, long-tail SERPS placement.

Blocks/modules that contain “featured content” or “most popular posts” can live on the home page indefinitely. I would argue that most niche site home pages do not change daily. If someone adds new content every day, they are likely more “authority” or “news” than “niche”. Niche sites rely on on-page SEO more heavily than authority or news sites.

If my homepage contains an H1 containing “Best Sprocket Reviews – SprocketReview.com” and an H2 link containing “Samsung Turbo Sprocket Review”, does this provide zero SEO benefit to my article in your opinion?

I only speak as an SEO expert having been building websites since March 1995… but what the hell do I know?

That’s all great but in this thread you suggested that short posts don’t rank, missing alt tags I defined are not a theme concern, 800-1200 word original content in lieu of on-page SEO is adequate for “the best SEO”, and H1 & H2 do not provide the benefit on homepages and archives to warrant adding them to the theme. I don’t think SEOs would agree with this.

Having the theme selectively add H1 to the home page is not as hard as you make it out to be. In one of my themes it’s accomplished with a single IF statement.

Having the theme add H1 and H2 to the home page and archive pages will help more users than it would hurt. Almost all of the sites listed on page one of the showcase thread are missing H1 and H2 on their home and archive pages. Sure, we can say that these users are responsible for knowing and correcting their own SEO. Or, the theme can help users who don’t know any better. The latter option is clearly better than the former.

One might also argue it’s useful to inspect the demo of a theme before buying it…

I actually mentioned the header issues to TagDiv before buying the theme (5/4 email). I purchased the theme anyway because I liked it and planned to pursue getting the SEO issues fixed. TagDiv has added the H1, H2, and Alt Tag issues to the list so, so far so good. I’ll be running more SEO tests on the theme when I get time.

…then using it, then posting numerous times how bad it is or buggy, vs. requesting possible changes politely?

I never said Newspaper was bad or buggy. To the contrary, in this very thread I said “I love the theme”, I said Newspaper was “awesome” and I said Newspaper “is not buggy”. All of my replies to TagDiv have been polite. You are clearly mischaracterizing what I said.

All this effort to block adding two HTML tags to a WordPress theme. Geez…

H1 and H2 counts for theverge, techcrunch, and readwrite:

http://www.theverge.com/
H1: 0
H2: 30
http://www.theverge.com/tech
H1: 0
H2: 18

http://techcrunch.com/
H1: 0
H2: 30
http://techcrunch.com/gadgets/
H1: 1
H2: 26

http://readwrite.com/
H1: 0
H2: 28
http://readwrite.com/structure
H1: 1
H2: 20

Also, The Verge has the worse on-page of these three sites including duplicate meta descriptions, excessively long meta descriptions, bad use of H2, no H1 on the archive page, missing alt tags, etc.

@Radu

I uninstalled Newspaper a couple days ago so I can’t show you missing tags on my site. Check out this Newspaper site: “http://wfl.ro/&#8221;. SEMRush Diagnosis says 66 of 89 images are missing alt tags on the home page.

The sites you listed (http://www.theverge.com/ http://techcrunch.com/ http://readwrite.com/) ALL use H2 on the home page and category (archive) pages I checked. Thus, I’ll use your argument and suggest that H2 should be on the home page and archive pages in Newspaper.

Also, big sites benefit from other ranking factors such as millions of backlinks and domain authority. For smaller sites, on-page elements such as H1 and H2 are far more critical.

Regarding H1, do you also believe H1 is a preference and not a requirement on posts and pages?

My point about the recent Newspaper title issue was more about countering Chris’ suggestion that Yoast WordPress SEO was more buggy. I don’t consider Yoast SEO or Newspaper to be buggy. Bugs happens sometimes- it’s no big deal. You guys fixed it right was which is the most important thing.

Thanks Emil. I look forward to the future updates!

WordPress does not support alt tags by default, not a theme issue.

I define alt tags for all of my media files. Newspaper is not using them in all of the thumbnails, which leads to a high percentage of empty alt tags. This IS a theme issue.

H1 tags can easily be added to home page to setup a desired blurb about your site…

True but H1 should not be missing in the first place. Many Newspaper users are unaware that their home pages and archive pages are getting penalized by the theme’s missing H1 and H2 tags.

Yoast has had more SEO problems than TagDiv…

The recent TagDiv page title issue was worst than anything I’ve experienced with Yoast.

The best SEO is still ORIGINAL content, posts between 800-1200 words are the “Sweet Spot” — avoid short posts and copycat of other site content and images; avoid posts with a YouTube video and one paragraph about it, etc.

The best SEO is achieved with content AND with leveraging known signals. By ignoring proper use of H1, H2 and other non-content related on-page SEO, you unnecessarily penalize your own content.

Also, I see one-paragraph posts ranking all the time.

Newspaper is an awesome theme. If I didn’t believe this, I would have just moved on already. These SEO issues need to be fixed, not defended.