The TDH Framework: How Page Structure Shapes Rankings

Search engines read your page structure before your content. The HTML framework of Title, Description, and Headings (TDH) tells crawlers what matters and how ideas connect. Getting this skeleton wrong means even great content won’t rank.

Title Tags: Your Highest-Weight Signal

The title tag carries more ranking weight than any other on-page element. Place your core keyword near the front. Keep total length under 60 characters to prevent truncation in search results.

Small formatting choices affect click-through rates measurably. Adding the current year to titles increases CTR by roughly 5-6%. Questions in titles boost clicks by about 14%. Emotional language adds around 7%.

A reliable formula for page titles: Primary Function - Category Name - Brand Name. This structure front-loads the important information while maintaining readability.

The Single H1 Rule

Each page gets exactly one H1 tag. This heading functions as the page’s core descriptor. Include your primary keyword here. The H1 can match your title tag exactly or differ slightly, but both must target the same topic.

Multiple H1 tags split ranking signals and confuse crawlers about the page’s focus. Browser developer tools make auditing this straightforward.

Heading Hierarchy: Organize Ideas for Crawlers

H2 through H6 tags build your content outline. Maintain logical hierarchy: H1 introduces the page, H2 sections expand on major topics, H3 elements detail points within H2 sections. Never skip levels by jumping from H1 directly to H4.

Use headings to capture long-tail keywords. Rather than repeating your main keyword, spread related terms across H2 and H3 tags. A page about “movie stars” might have H2 sections for “Hollywood Actors” and “European Actresses,” with H3 entries for specific names.

This structure enables automated table of contents generation, which improves user navigation and can appear as sitelinks in search results.

Description Tags for Click-Through

Meta descriptions don’t directly influence rankings, but they heavily affect whether users click your result. Write compelling summaries under 160 characters. Include keywords naturally since Google bolds matching terms, drawing user attention.

Every page needs a unique description. Duplicate descriptions across pages waste opportunities to influence click behavior on each specific result.