The H1 carries a mild relevance signal, but its bigger job is orienting the reader and reinforcing what the page is about, which puts it squarely between the two myths people argue over. It is neither a major ranking lever you can pull for gains nor a decorative element that does nothing. It earns a modest amount of weight, and you get the most from it by writing it for clarity first and letting the relevance signal follow naturally.
On the ranking side, the H1 does contribute. Search engines read it as one of the stronger on-page cues about a page’s topic, since it is the most prominent heading and usually summarizes the content. That gives it more relevance value than an ordinary line of body text. But it is one signal among many, and stacking keywords into it will not push a page up the way some older advice implied. The lift it provides is real and small, not the lever that decides a competitive ranking.
On the reader side, the H1 does the heavier lifting. It is the first thing a visitor reads after the title, the line that confirms they landed on the right page and tells them what they are about to get. A clear, descriptive H1 reduces the chance someone bounces because the page felt off-topic, and that downstream effect on engagement matters more in practice than the direct ranking nudge.
The mistake to avoid in both directions is treating the H1 as either a keyword slot or an afterthought. Cramming the target phrase in repeatedly makes it read worse for humans and gains you little, while a vague or missing H1 wastes the orientation it could provide. The calibrated move is one H1 per page that plainly states the topic and reads like a human wrote it.
For your next page, write a single clear H1 that describes the content in plain language, include the core topic where it fits naturally, and resist the urge to optimize it any further. You will have given the H1 exactly the weight it earns, which is meaningful for the reader and modest for the ranking, and you can spend your effort where it pays more.