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.
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
-
Canonical tags in the body?
Hi there, Does anyone know if placing canonical tags in the body instead of the header of a page will still "take"? The system we are on means that making an editable header is no easy business and I was just wondering how big of a difference it makes to have it in a different area. Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | Whittie0 -
URL Path. What is better for SEO
Hello Moz people, Is it better for SEO to have a URL path like this: flowersite.com/anniversary_flowers/dozen_roses OR flowersite.com/dozen_roses Is it better to have the full trail of pages in the URL?
On-Page Optimization | | CKerr0 -
Difference in using dividers in TITLE TAG
Hi everyone, i know that dividers in title or even title tag doesnt have much of an impact on better rankings. I had great rankings for many keywords, not using dividers or using only one divider. However for better reading comprehension and usability, and also aesthetics i started to use the pipe as my main divider and other secondary dividers. I saw many pages drop in rankings vs other less competent and with less content pages. My format was as follows: Product Brand | Product description - Additional info or local info ie. Fiber Glass MBI | Insulation Batts for Home and Commercial use - Acoustic and Thermal Insulation I changed the format for a handful of pages, and saw immediate results on rankings and traffic on those pages. Product Brand with Product Description - Additional Info ie. Fiber Glass MBI Insulation Batts for Commercial use - Acoustic and Thermal Insulation. Does it sound like something i should implement page wide. I personally like the aesthetics of the pipe as it gives a cleaner look, but the better rankings on the changed pages with using only one divider makes me think. Does it sound familiar, or its just a coincidence, Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | JesusD0 -
How to peroperly use h1 , h2 and h3 tag on your website.
Is it better to have different h1 for each page or have the same h1 across the site. I am using h1 fin wordpress for beside that I have 4 more h1 in the same page how to properly use h2 and h3 can we have muliple h2 on a page. what would be an ideal hx tag order be ? h1
On-Page Optimization | | conversiontactics
h2
h2- h3 h3 If anyone can provide some answers Many thanks0 -
ECommerce Filtering Affect on SEO
I'm building an eCommerce website which has an advanced filter on the left hand side of the category pages. It allows users to tick boxes for colours, sizes, materials, and so on. When they've made their choices they submit (this will likely be an AJAX thing in a future release, but isn't at time of writing). The new filtered page has a new URL, which is made up of the IDs of the filter's they've ticked - it's a bit like /department/2/17-7-4/10/ My concern is that the filtered pages are, on the most part, going to be the same as the parent. Which may lead to duplicate content. My other concern is that these two URLs would lead to the exact same page (although the system would never generate the 'wrong' URL) /department/2/17-7-4/10/ /department/2/**10/**17-7-4/ But I can't think of a way of canonicalising that automatically. Tricky. So the meat of the question is this: should I worry about this causing issues with the SEO - or can I have trust in Google to work it out?
On-Page Optimization | | AndieF0 -
Trying to SEO a site that used Header Tags for Design
I am trying to SEO a website that was built years ago and uses Header tags for design. The site must have 25 and tags used for design purpose. Is there any way to work around this problem? Perhaps a code that tells Google to ignore these as Headers? The web designers say that they are looking to fix the problem sometime this summer but you never know if that means it a month away or years away. I really want to help this website but I believe that the Header tags are one of the reasons that his site does not show in the top 100 rankings for any keywords. Any help would be great. www.wallybuysell.com Chris.K
On-Page Optimization | | CKerr0 -
Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?
Hi All, Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback. My question is this: In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website. Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza Anyone have thoughts on this one? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell0 -
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
