SEO vs. Appearance

Use a logo or the <H1> tag?

[tlhmh1]

I am creating a new website from the ground up. The site will have little paid advertising, so search engine rankings are crucial. However, I am troubled about whether I should use the <H1> tag or use a logo for the title of the site on the homepage. The title of the site is keyword rich, and so I want to use the <H1> tag, however large text often looks terrible on PCs. I'm afraid it will not look professional if I use the <H1> tag instead of a logo.

So my question is...

Is the <H1> tag heavily waited for Google?
Will the benefits outweigh the lack of a professional look?

What do you all think?

-Tim

[andreasfriedrich]

Use CSS to make the h1 element look smaller. Have a nice graphic logo and a h1 element as a subtitle.

[tlhmh1]

The problem is that the title is the keyword rich part, not the subtitle.

Also, does changing the size of the <H1> text with CSS change the importance of it in Google's algorithms?

-Tim

[JamesR]

I would go with the logo. You can use H1 tags in other ways to target your keywords. If your company name is that keyword rich, you should be able to build quite a few inbound links with keyword rich anchor text that has much more influence than an H1 tag.

[Nick_W]

Do both? Have a nice (small) graphic and the <hi> alongside it like this:

<img src="/imgs/logo.gif" alt="keyword" id="logo" />
<h1 id="title">Keyword phrase here</h1>

and in your stylesheet....

[pre]
h1#title {
 font-size: 1em;
 font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
 letter-spacing: .3em;
 margin: 0;
 color: #000033;
 text-align: center;
 padding-top: .5em;
}
img#logo {
 padding-bottom: .5em;
 float: left;
}
[/pre]

mess around with it to get what you want...

Nick

[RedEyes]

For now, Googlebot does not crawl css files. So the spider has no idea that <h1> is modified in any way.

[EliteWeb]

Use Nick's code :P Use em both to take full advantage.

[Nick_W]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld RedEyes!

Correct, there should be no trouble on that score anyway, as long as the code makes sense and the <h1> is not being abused.. ie. used more than once...

Nick

[tlhmh1]

Use both? Use a logo that says:

The Blue Widget Directory

... and then have the <H1> tag next to it saying "The Blue Widget Directory" ?

That seems redundant, a bit unprofessional, and perhaps even silly.

You don't think so?

[Nick_W]

That's not what I mean.

Use a nice small icon like graphic as found on many sites if you need a little branding/color/enhancement.

Check my profile, I'm a lame artist but, that's what I mean...

Nick

[tlhmh1]

I see, Nick. That looks pretty good. However your <H1> is a subtitle, not the title. My title is the keyword rich phrase, and I don't have a subtitle. It is similar to:

The Blue Widget Directory

"Widget" , "Blue Widget" , "Widget Directory" and "Blue Directory" are all common search terms / phrases for my website.

That is why I really want to put it in the <H1> tag.

[Nick_W]

My <title> is exactly the same as my <h1> ???

....as specified by the 'we all agree on this' feeling here of mirroring <title> tags with <h1>'s

Nick

[tlhmh1]

I'm sorry for the confusion. I did not mean the title tag. Yes, my title tag would be the same as the text in the <H1> tag.

I meant the "organization" or "website name." For example, your site uses:

<title>TEXT USED IN <H1> TAG</title>

<img href="ORGANIZATION_NAME.gif">

<h1>TEXT USED IN <H1> TAG</h1>

The difference is that my ORGANIZATION_NAME is the same as the text in the title tag and the <H1>. In other words, your TEXT USED IN <H1> TAG is different from your ORGANIZATION_NAME. For me, they are the same, hence the problem.

Does that make sense? :)

[andreasfriedrich]

Just be creative. I´m sure you can come up with some idea and have your company name in the logo and something like a mission statement with your keywords as an h1 element as I said in my post above.

Subtitle is just the thing below the title. Make it whatever you want.

[korkus2000]

Why not use the logo (most companies would blow their tops if it wasn't used. Offline brand recognition is still very important.) and the name in your H1.

WebmasterWorld logo

<h1>Find independent web professional news and discussion at WebmasterWorld</h1>

A little redundant but throws your keyword density up without looking silly. You should always use your logo graphic. If you are dumping something dump the html text.