The best way to create headings

[jfred1979]

Is there a reason to use heading tags (<h1>,<h2>, etc.) for headings rather than another method such as <span> with a style sheet rule attached? Block elements such as <h1> often introduce too big of a line break when I want the heading close to the text. Do SE's look specifically at heading tags, or is there any other reason I should stop using them?

[papabaer]

Headings are extremelyu important structural elements. Their importance is weight incrementally with <h1> carrying the most weight and <h6> the least. All are noted as containing important information.

You can control header margins using CSS:

h1 {margin-bottom: 10px;}
h2, h3 {marging-bottom: 0;}
and so on...

Never use a <span> to style text where a header is called for.

- papabaer

[korkus2000]

On top of what papabaer said, yes SE use these in their ranking algos. Text used in an H1 tag is considered more important than other elements on the page.

[jfred1979]

Thanks for the feedback, formatting the header margins with css is what I'll do.