It has long been taught and still is, that to improve S. E. O  results we need to include the keywords of our topic in the Headings of the pages we post.

It is also taught of the importance of Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 in utilizing the keywords ratings are,

The main keyword should be used in Heading 1

Second important in Heading 2 and so on. 

However, it is now reported that this theory dates back to 2003 and is of little importance now.

John Mueller

Google’s John Mueller claims that whilst this was a significant aspect to achieving higher ratings in S. E. O. years ago, it is not significant now and the practice is still used purely by people adopting the same old methods automatically, more commonly known as rote, meaning to do something mechanically or automatically out of habit.

He also goes on to say that whereas years ago it was significant to order the H 1 H 2 and H 3 headings for relevant keyword importance, this is no longer used by Google as a ranking tool and Headings are now more commonly used as they were originally meant, to assess the value of the content in the article.

Importance of Accurate Content.

He goes on to explain that Heading tags are now used to summarize the overall content of an article or image, therefore assessing the quality of content relevant to the information request posted. Helping Google provide the most accurate information for the query request.

The important message is to ensure you provide accurate information in your header that will help Google quickly find useful and relevant information it can provide to the query asked and not to rely on keyword stuffing in your headers as they will not help your efforts to gain higher rankings in S.E.O.

Summary.

So to summarize, headings are still important, not to fill with keywords of your topic or subject but important that you provide an accurate description of what the article/item is about thereby enabling Google to find quality information quicker.