How to fix empty heading on BigCommerce

Steps for BigCommerce

1. In your BigCommerce Control Panel, go to Storefront → My Themes → (active theme) → Advanced → Edit Theme Files.
2. Use the file search to locate Handlebars template files (`.html` under `templates/`) containing empty heading tags.
3. Add literal text or a template variable inside the tag, e.g. `<h2>{{category.name}}</h2>`.
4. Wrap dynamic headings in a Handlebars conditional to avoid rendering an empty tag: `{{#if category.name}}<h2>{{category.name}}</h2>{{/if}}`.
5. For Page Builder content (Storefront → Pages → Edit → Page Builder): click the Heading widget, type visible text in the Content field, or delete unused heading widgets.
6. Save and preview; validate with the axe browser extension.

What is empty heading?

A heading tag — `<h1>`, `<h2>`, `<h3>`, and so on — is supposed to label a section of a page, like a chapter title in a book. An "empty heading" is one of those tags that exists in your page's code but contains no readable text: it might be completely blank, hold only a spacer character, or contain an icon with no text alternative. Because the tag is there but says nothing, screen readers announce "heading" to a blind or low-vision visitor and then go silent — which is confusing and often disorienting.

Accessibility & legal risk: WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) and 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels) require headings to be meaningful. Empty headings fail these criteria, exposing your store to accessibility complaints, ADA/AODA/EAA legal action, and — in many jurisdictions — potential litigation. *SEO:* Search engines use heading tags as strong signals for what a page is about. Empty headings dilute the heading hierarchy and give crawlers nothing useful, which can hurt rankings for the sections those headings are meant to introduce. *Conversions:* A broken page structure frustrates assistive-technology users, who represent roughly 15–20 % of the global population, and causes them to abandon your store.

See the complete Empty heading guide for every platform and the full background.