Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?
-
We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be. The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?
-
@DVLighting While using an H1 tag in your logo might not hurt SEO, it also doesn't offer a big advantage. In fact, it can actually make things less user-friendly for people with screen readers and take away from the opportunity to clearly highlight your main page message with a separate H1 tag. So, unless your logo itself incorporates the main title text, sticking with a standard H1 tag is the way to go for both SEO clarity and user experience.
-
@DVLighting While using an H1 tag in your logo might not hurt SEO, it also doesn't offer a big advantage. In fact, it can actually make things less user-friendly for people with screen readers and take away from the opportunity to clearly highlight your main page message with a separate H1 tag. So, unless your logo itself incorporates the main title text, sticking with a standard H1 tag is the way to go for both SEO clarity and user experience.
-
When you're writing the alt text for an image, simply write the alt text to describe what the picture is. Some web designers just label the picture 01- example, yet, to improve your SEO, its good to say what is in the picture for example a man eating an apple and write the alt text, just like that, man eating apple.
-
I'm not worried it will hurt SEO. I just wondered if it will actually have any benefit and whether it would be more beneficial having the H1 tag not in the logo and as a standard H1 tag?
-
I'm pretty sure you with HTML5 you can have one
per container element. Therefore, while having the logo as the
isn't ideal, it won't hurt.
-
Don't think so much about this. Use brand name on logo as H1. and you have to be very sure, every page should be have only one h1 tag.
-
Hello Andreas,
Thank you for your answer. I don't think I explained myself very well in the question.
Yes, I meant that the H1 tag should be the brand name, not the title. We have over 60 pages where the topic of the page is a particular brand name that we are stockists of.
At the top of each of those pages is the brand's particular logo which acts as a visual heading for those pages. Our web developer put the H1 tag as the alt attribute for the logo image. But I am unsure as to whether this is good for SEO - to link a H1 tag to the image.
-
This is a thing wich is pretty much normal for a lot of CMS-Templates. It is not best practice, each SEO-Tool will tell you to use only one h1 wich is unique. Don't have equal H1-Tags everywhere. Thats the best practice.
According to John Mueller and my experience, Google is not stupid. It is possible to have more than one H1-Tag. Now it depends on how much factors you are serving well. You and your competitors. These H1 alone is not such a big factor. It is working if you have a second headline with the main-topic of your website. A lot more stuff is relevant. If it is not easy possible to change it, you can deal with it and care about other factors. Special if they are in different sections.
If it is possible, I would allways follow best-practices (specially for smaller or newer domains/companies). One thing sounds wrong "he H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be" - I mean, the title (bet you ment the h1) should be what the page is about. Without alt-attribute you current H1 is a simple image, wich means it is empty.
You ask what is working better - Better is to have an H1 unique on every page. Dont use Headings as style Elements and yes, give an alt-attribute for your logo. Thats defenetly a better way, but it is not impossible to do like you did. Like I said, I am pretty long in this business, thatswhy Logos, Sidebar- & Footerheadlines, all style Elements are not SEO-Elelements when I create Webpages. But yes - I also work for websites without changing h1-logos and h3 menu-items (cms-reasons). And it is possible to rank in hard topics. Favorite answer - it depends.
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
-
Keyword Stuffing - Image Alt
One of our category pages is keyword stuffed. But we are not able to change the image alt text. It is automatically generated as the title of each product. We would be able to get the keywords down if that was not the case, but now there is 30 alt image keywords along with 25 other elements of the keyword. I can only change 2 image alt texts. What can I do here?
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
Footer and SEO
Hi All... We have a client who wants to really minimize and simply their website. They want to remove some of the footer info. Obviously we do not want to remove any contact or address but they would like to remove the footer menu system. I have read various things about it NOT effecting SEO and that it is there for user navigation and usability. Thoughts? Opinions? zach
On-Page Optimization | | Group20 -
Modal Windows SEO
The new company site is almost finished, and I've just learned that instead of the home page linking to a few internal pages (it's a tiny site), they are just using modal windows instead of deeper pages. Is that bad for SEO and what can I do to optimize with this setup?
On-Page Optimization | | UnaRealidad0 -
Domain Name and On-Page SEO
Where are the best places to put your Domain name in On-Page SEO? My domain name ends in .net so I would like to put it as many places as possible to brand the .net . On the analysis page I have found out that it is not a good idea to put it in the title page...but that is what the SEO guy I hired told me to do. Thanks, Utah Tiger
On-Page Optimization | | Boodreaux0 -
Best Way To Host Images For Image Optimization
I need an image optimization expert to tell me whether or not we are hosting images properly for SEO. Currently, we upload all images to Picasa and then call them out with a webpart in our content management system. See example here - http://www.tennisnow.com/Photos/2011-BNP-Paribas-Open-Day-5.aspx Here's an example of the url that is attached to each image - http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1Oyc-Zgkrpk/TX5H-Pfyd7I/AAAAAAAARbc/nG3Cw-G5tsY/s400/1215548409_FU9xA-L.jpg We have a lot of images, and we've hosted them on Picasa for speed purposes based on a recommendation from our developer (makes the pages load faster). I've read that Google can now factor page load time into its ranking parameters. We are not seeing the images from each photo gallery being indexed on images.google.com. We are torn. What should we do to rank for these images?
On-Page Optimization | | tennisexpress0 -
Preferred Image Replacement Techniques
What is the preferred image replacement technique currently for CSS? I have been using the one that someone here at SeoMoz recommended a year or two ago, which was: Text to be hidden { #id { overflow:hidden; width:200px; //width of the image background-image: url(...); } #id span { display:block; width:1000px; height:1000px; }
On-Page Optimization | | TomBristol0