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.
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?
-
I agree 100% with what Theo is saying. The use of CSS to replace images has gotten to a point (from a purely aesthetic standpoint) that you cant tell the difference anymore. It is effective and considered best practice to use text when possible. It compounds your pages SEO weight and can edge out your competition if they are using images as opposed to CSS to render text in its place. Style Sheets RULE!
-
UX: if the image is missing for some reason, the Alt Text will be formatted as H1 and have to fit inside the image area. Not a pretty picture at all.
-
Really interesting that you ask this as I have just recently been researching on this exact same thing. A website where we had 4 H1 tags on homepage (not a good thing!) needed to change - to keep it to just 1. I did not want to introduce new keyword phrase and I struggled to find an existing keyword/title phrase that I could wrap the H1 with. For a sometime I was considering making the logo as H1 as the logo images ALT had the websites main keywords in it but from research and non-scientific test on a dummy site, I found that its not very affective at all.
To some extent, the effect is like an image backlink - Google does not greatly value the ALT of the image that is linking to you, as it would, had the backlink been from a text link with anchor text.
-
Most crawlers that I've used has not recognised the H1 tag wrapped in Alt text used on one of our sites. Once we have used the normal H1 tag we have seen a good increase in one of the keywords we have tried to rank for a while.
-
The functional purpose of H1 tags is to identify sections of text so CSS formatting can easily be applied such as text size, bold, font, etc. Those text modifiers don't apply to images.
I checked and enclosing an image within a H1 tag is actually valid HTML as per the W3C standards.
I doubt this idea has ever been tested to see if the alt tag was given any increased importance because it was contained in a H1 tag. I would not believe it would as the entire point is bold or enlarged text increases visibility, whereas ALT text is not visible to most readers.
This is an instance where you are making a change that does not benefit users in an effort to manipulate search rankings. I wouldn't suggest it as helpful.
-
No. Actual text is slightly more effective than an image alt text. You might want to have a look at CSS image replacement techniques?
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
-
Image File Names for eCommerce?
Hi everyone! I'm wondering about naming my product photo file names for an E-Commerce site. Let's say I say have product named Abe Lincoln in the **Print **category for sale with 4 images, relatively similar but from different views for example.Could I name them as follows? 1) abe-lincoln-print.jpg 2) abe-lincoln-print-side-view.jpg 3) abe-lincoln-print-close-up.jpg 4) abe-lincoln-print-font-view.jpg Or is that too many keywords for the page? Should I be worried about keyword stuffing? Plus once I add in title and alt tags and descriptions this could also increase the keyword count for "abe lincoln print"?
On-Page Optimization | | TheFlyingSweetPotato0 -
Should I watermark my product images
I am in the process of creating new images for my products to use on my website. Are there any advantages or disadvantages of watermarking each image? Is there an SEO impact good or bad? I am aware that filename and Alt tags are important, but am unsure if google dislikes watermarked images.
On-Page Optimization | | BipSum1 -
SEO Location Pages - ALT Image Tag Question
Hello Guru's, I have a Hire Website whereby you can rent products online. I have created different Location pages for these which are in essence the same pages page but with different location specific urls, title tags , on page content etc etc. This helps me to rank for local search. These location pages also display 20 products per page. My question is Should I make the ALT IMAGE TEXT location specific for each of the 20 products . Example - Steam Cleaner Rental in "location" or should I only amend a few of the Atl Image Texts to be location specific. I don't want to come accross as spammy in google eyes but I also don't want to be seen as having duplicate content , images etc etc What do you think ? thanks Sarah.
On-Page Optimization | | SarahCollins0 -
What should I put in the image ALT and title text for blogger?
Hello, I wanted to know what should I put in the image ALT and title text for blogger. I've read so many damn articles about ALT text and Title text for blogger; nothing explained what I put in it though. What am I supposed to put in it that will help me with my on page optimization? (Stuff like do I use spaces or dashes, do I put my keyword in there, how many characters should I not exceed, do I put one word or two words?) If I have a picture of a backpack, what should the alt text be? What if I have 10 different pictures of backpacks on 1 page? How about if I had a backpack next to a tv in an image? A specific answer or a detailed one is nice!
On-Page Optimization | | 6786486312640 -
Can I place H1 tag anywhere on page
Hello, For those of you who use Magento you will know it is not SEO friendly. When you create a category or product, the name of the product or category then becomes the H1 tag. We sell mens business shirts. For example we have a product called 'White poplin classic fit' this is also the H1 tag, nobody is ever going to search for that term so I have had my developer create a new attribute that allows me to keep the product name as it is and let's me create a new SEO friendly H1 tag, for example 'White business shirt' However, placing 'White business shirt' on the page to be visible by the visitor does not look good on the page. My question is. Can I place the H1 tag anywhere on the page? I have some tabs like below. I am thinking of add a tab in between delivery and returns called more info and placing more seo keywords including the H1 tag in this tab. Will this be OK or will this be seen as black hat technique?
On-Page Optimization | | mullsey0 -
Do images on a CDN affect my Google Ranking?
I have recently switched my images to a CDN (MaxCDN) and all of the images within my post are now get loaded directly from the CDN. Will this affect my Google ranking? Do Google care if the image is hosted physicaly on the domain?
On-Page Optimization | | Amosnet0 -
Image Optimization - File Name Important?
I am currently working on a site with 100+ recipes that all have image file names that are relevant, but not optimized for keyword purposes. I'm wondering - from an SEO perspective - would it be worth my time to go back through all of the images and rename them with keywords in mind? On my own site I have always done this as a "best practice" but I'm curious - does it make a difference to search engines? Does anyone have any recent research/experiences that they would like to share? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | EssEEmily0 -
Image file name, is it important
If I use the same image all over my site, do I need to change the file name to avoid duplicate? Different alt text will be use on those images
On-Page Optimization | | BigBlaze2050