Accessibility: Preparing Your Site Structure

2 min read
Your site's hierarchy, meaning its structure, helps web browsers and screen readers understand how your site is organized, and how to present the content. 

You can add tags to headings to indicate whether they are first level headings (H1), second level headings (H2) etc. Learn more about HTML tags

Follow the recommendations below when preparing your text:

  • Use HTML tags for your text: Every page should have an H1 heading, and following that, the HTML tags on each page should be sequential. For example, if the main heading on the page is an H1 tag, the subtitle should be H2, and so on. This is so visitors with visual impairments can toggle through your content in a logical order.
  • The headings should be descriptive: Think of the headings as labels for the text below (this is also important for SEO). 
  • Spacing is important: While editing your text, if you want to break a heading into multiple lines, use the Shift + Enter keys to insert a line break, instead of Enter which creates a new heading element on each line. 
  • Add headings to the page body: H1s added to a site header will appear on all pages where the header is displayed. We therefore recommend adding headings to the page body instead. 
    Tip: If you have a one-page site with no additional pages, you can ignore this recommendation.
Next step:
Go back to the Accessibility Checklist to continue improving your site for accessibility.

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