Why it matters.
AirOps analysed more than 12,000 URLs from 900 high-intent queries and reported on 18 July 2025 that 68.7% of URLs cited by ChatGPT followed a sequential heading structure, against 23.9% of Google’s top results. A single H1 appeared on 87% of cited pages, against 64% of Google’s leaders.
That is a correlation, not proof that headings cause citations. But fan-out searches are short and specific, and a heading such as “How long does onboarding take?” tells any reader, human or machine, that the answer follows.
The 10-minute self-check.
Use a headings browser extension, or search the page source for “<h”. On your top service page, list the headings in order and check:
- Exactly one H1, and it names what the page is.
- H2 then H3, never skipping a level for styling.
- Each heading makes sense read alone. “Why us?” and “Our approach” do not.
Steps.
- Give each page one H1 that names the service or topic plainly.
- Rewrite H2s as buyer questions or plain statements of what follows.
- Make the first sentence under each heading answer it.
- Stop using heading tags to make text big; use styles instead.
- Keep levels in order, and add a heading check to your pre-publish routine.
Heading audits are part of our SEO page reviews.
What we saw on prolinkage.com.
How to measure it.
- Pages passing: the three self-check tests, by template.
- Question queries: Search Console impressions for question-shaped queries on the pages you rewrote.
- Lifted passages: whether engine answers quote the section under a rewritten heading.
Sources.
- AirOps, Structuring content for LLMs, 18 July 2025.
- Prolinkage pre-publish article check, 7 November 2026.