Required
Every page MUST include HTML Header tags (<h1>, <h2> etc) to enable efficient navigation to the main areas of content.
HTML H tags are an integral component to enable people who are blind or visually impaired to quickly skim, and navigate to the most important content on your page. Without H tags, the screen reader user is forced to review the page linearly by pressing the up/down arrow keys to read each line, or tab between links to find desired content. This can be a laborious process, particularly on AOL pages that contain a large amount of navigation in addition to the page-specific content.
With properly placed HTML H tags on the page, the screen reader user can easily use his/her H key to move from one content title/area to the next.
Imagine you are looking at a page of news articles. As a sighted person, you can easily scan the page and read each title to decide if you want to read more or skip to the next title. In a similiar manner, the screen reader uses the H key to quickly move from one title to the next. If the person wants to read more, s/he can then use the arrow down key to have the screen reader begin reading the text news article.
When a screen reader user lands on an HTML page, the screen reader announces how many H tags it found on that page. A page with no H tags is like a "Not Welcome" sign greeting our blind users. We should always include H tags. Consider it an easy way to make your page more accessible.
Using H tags can in most cases replace the need to provide skip links.
HTML H tags are also used by search engines to rank content. An H1 would be ranked higher then an H2.
In the example below, it is easy to see where the H tags should go. Almost every place you see a bold font in large and dark letters, is a title to an area of content and contains an H tag. I would probably add H tags to the titles "News" and "Sport" which seem to be curiously missing. "Learning English" and "Country Profiles" might benefit from an H tag as well.
Meaningful HTML elements are used for headers (<h1> to <h3>) and paragraphs (<p>), lists of links are organized using the list (<li>) element, tables (<table>) for layout avoided
<h1> element is considered more important than text inside a <div class="header"> element<b> are more important than text alone,but use naturally<h1> through <h3> are preferred range; beyond <h3>, engines apply less (if any) meaning, and become more difficult to navigate by assistive devices (screen readers for blind users) <h1> should be used for the main header of the page that contains the page’s Title<h2> should be used for module headers and the major sections of the page<h3> should be used within modules, under the <h2> section headers<li> should be used for lists of links - Example: ‘<ul><li>- <a href="coolsite.com">Cool Site</a></li><li>...</li></ul>‘ instead of ‘- <a href="coolsite.com"><br />- <a ...><br />‘