Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
SEO Implications of using Images for Article Titles
-
Hi guys! New to Moz Pro. I just recently completed an online course with Moz...
I have a client who is writing some new content for their site, and we are approaching it with SEO in mind. I was wondering about using an image with text on it as the article title, instead of an actual "text on the page" title. Wondering if that's going to "cost" us anything, SEO wise.
I guess we could use alt-text/title/description fields to make sure the keywords are crawlable for our article title but do they have less "weight" than a standard title? How does that work? Hope my question makes sense.
Article header attached
-
Very good to know this ... was concerned that it is exactly as you are describing (quite a cost to remove
tags)! Thanks for your response.
-
On a lot of my pages, I have an
title at the top, often with
below it. Below them, spanning the entire width of the page, I will have a wide format image with a relevant caption. I think that it is important for the visitors to have an interesting image at the top. If I don't have one spanning the entire width of the page, then I have my best image at top of the right column. We often spend good amounts of money on these article-opening images. We also use these images on category pages and recommended readings lists to advertise the articles to all visitors of the site.
-
I agree with EGOL on using text based article title. You will get more SEO benefit if you have a clear page heading i.e text based article title at the beginning of the page. This way you'll also get a chance to target other keywords in the image alt tags.
-
I would not use an image as a replacement for a title line on any of my websites.
I want the
at the top in text rather than in the alt attribute of an image.
If I had a designer who insisted on this, that designer would not be working for me for another minute. In my opinion, the
text is that important.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Q&A Page Titles
Hello All! I am currently updating page titles and metadata descriptions for a websites Q&A section and have run in to a problem while updating page titles. Since it is the Q&A section of the website, all of the page titles are around 100 characters and some are up to 200 characters long. Here is an example: Page Title: My child is working below grade level in math. Do I have to purchase the curriculum from the grade below as well? The problem is that this is obviously too long for a SERP to display however I know it is best practice to have matching titles on both the title tag and page title. My question is what hurts SEO value more: the title tag and title of the page not matching or having a very long title displayed on the SERP?
On-Page Optimization | Aug 23, 2016, 12:58 PM | Myles921 -
Background Images and ALT text
We pretty much exclusively use background images for our sites. How do I add in alt text? I tried a Google search for this issue and the best answer I could find was "Use the 'title' tag in the containing div", but that was from 2010. Is there a better way to do it? And no, we're not going to switch to using standard images, because background images are way more slick for UX.
On-Page Optimization | Feb 17, 2016, 8:43 PM | MichaelGregory0 -
SEO Optimization for Sales Page
Hi, I am new to eCommerce. Traditionally I have run a couple of semi-successful websites relying largely on Adsense revenue and affiliate income. So I have a bit of experience with on page and off page SEO. This time around I am creating a membership site and also sell eBooks as bundles that non members can buy. My question is, should I SEO optimize the sales page for my eBook or use another content page that links to the sales page. For example, if I am selling an ebook on Dog Training and targeting the main KW "Dog Training Tips", should my sales page be optimized for "Dog Training Tips"? The reason I ask is because typically Sales pages do not provide a lot of useful information but are more geared around selling the product. The other option would be to create a helpful information page targeted for "Dog Training Tips" and lead users to my sales page through contextual links, banners, popups (I hate popups), etc. This would be the approach for the other LSI keywords anyways. Any thought would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | Mar 9, 2015, 12:44 PM | dwautism0 -
SEO for luxury brands!?
Hi all, It is widely known fact that you will be a bit in trouble if you will need to do SEO for luxury brand that is not willing to sacrifice design, layout etc. for SEO purposes. So basically - there is no content to optimize and there is almost no keywords to rank! 😉 Just wondering - how would be the best to approach such kind of terrible situation? Regards, Jungle
On-Page Optimization | Sep 12, 2012, 6:56 AM | Jungles0 -
Do images work as a H1
Is a h1 tag wrapped image with a optimized alt tag as effective as text wrapped in a h1 tag?
On-Page Optimization | Sep 20, 2011, 9:13 PM | EAOM0 -
Alt tag using photoshop
Simple question i think. Ive started adding alt tags to images using the slice tool in photoshop. This takes up a menu were the last part of is alt tag: This way to add alt tags does work right? I used SEO-browser afterwards and couldnt see the tag. There are maybe other better ways to see if your tags are in there ? Dan L.
On-Page Optimization | Aug 5, 2012, 3:42 PM | danlae0 -
German SEO
Just a quickie, Does anybody know of any strong German SEO agencies? Many Thanks Sean
On-Page Optimization | Jul 12, 2011, 5:49 PM | Yozzer0 -
Best SEO structure for blog
What is the best SEO page/link structure for a blog with, say 100 posts that grows at a rate of 4 per month? Each post is 500+ words with charts/graphics; they're not simple one paragraph postings. Rather than use a CMS I have a hand crafted HTML/CSS blog (for tighter integration with the parent site, some dynamic data effects, and in general to have total control). I have a sidebar with headlines from all prior posts, and my blog home page is a 1 line summary of each article. I feel that after 100 articles the sidebar and home page have too many links on them. What is the optimal way to split them up? They are all covering the same niche topic that my site is about. I thought of making the side bar and home page only have the most recent 25 postings, and then create an archive directory for older posts. But categorizing by time doesn't really help someone looking for a specific topic. I could tag each entry with 2-3 keywords and then make the sidebar a sorted list of tags. Clicking on a tag would then show an intermediate index of all articles that have that tag, and then you could click on an article title to read the whole article. Or is there some other strategy that is optimal for SEO and the indexing robots? Is it bad to have a blog that is too heirarchical (where articles are 3 levels down from the root domain) or too flat (if there are 100s of entries)? Thanks for any thoughts or pointers.
On-Page Optimization | May 7, 2011, 5:35 PM | scanlin0