[WSG] advices for using headings more correctly

[Julián Landerreche]

I know this is a topic that often comes back to the list. Well, it comes back again. I'm having some troubles when trying to think how headings should be used, and I'm always thinking about simplify the site structure, but that simplification always seems to mean "strip out content". Summary of this e-mail: I want to know some good practices about using heading tags. Specially for the first three levels (h1, h2, h3) that are usually the most used tags for headings, and that I often find myself doing "malabares" to create a good site structure using headings. I'm a bit lost. Suppose this basic content: My site title ...navigation...     My section name        Latest Articles           Article 1 Title              paragraph           Article 2 Title              paragraph ..etc.. How will you mark it up? I think the usual (clasic) mark-up is <h1>My site title<h1> ...navigation...     <h2>My section name</h2>        <h3>Latest Articles</h3>           <h4>Article 1 Title</h4>              <p>paragraph</p>           <h4>Article 2 Title</h4>              <p>paragraph</p> But I would like to know if the following is a valid way too (i'm not talking about valid code, but valid content structure). <h1>My site title<h1> ...navigation... <hr />     <h1>My section name</h1>        *<h3>Latest Articles</h3>*           <h2>Article 1 Title</h2>              <p>paragraph</p>           <h2>Article 2 Title</h2>              <p>paragraph</p> Notice that I'm using <h1> level headings twice, but *most important* is that i'm using an <h3> heading *before* and <h2> heading. Why? I want to give *more relevance to the "Articles Titles"* than to the "Latest Articles" heading, because that last one is more a kind of "separation heading". I think the "Latest articles" as a level 3 heading more like a visual/semantic/structure aid for users to know what is the content that comes below that heading. So, I find myself lost and this are some questions I have: 1.  Should I mark-up "Latest Articles" with another tag that is not a heading tag? The problem here is that if I mark it up with anything else, it's probably that I will use stylesheet to "transform" it into a heading, and that is something I want to avoid. 2. Or should I keep a minor-level heading (h3 before h2) to mark it up? 3. Should I include My Site Title wrapped by a heading in all pages? Should I include My Section Name? 4. Or should I start directly with a h1/h2 applied to the most relevant content in the page (articles in this case)? 5. Should I avoid to repeat headings of the same level in the same page? 6. Anything else I should know about the world of headings? Thanks in advance and excuse my english. Julián