Your logo is an image, not a <h1>

[uzoma]

Should you mark your logo up as an image or a <h1>?

I used to like the idea of putting in some text in the mark-up and using css image replacement...but really come to think of it, the logo is content and not style...makes sense

Google thinks the alt attribute is the best way. What do you think?

[Aimee]

Oh wow! I would have used css replacement too.
Is that an official google webmaster video?

[uzoma]

Yeah Aimee, I just confirmed that it's from the official Google Webmaster Central channel. But I was even more convinced by the article because there was just so much good sense in it.

[Aimee]

Thanks for sharing it!

[Vlad]

Thank you for sharing the article, Uzoma.

[yianni88]

Short, sweet and direct! Thanks for sharing Uzoma! Especially as i USED to use image replacement.

[uzoma]

I've given this a bit more thought and I realise that there are times when the branding on a site is not an image but just simple text. In such cases, I guess we shouldn't force this...the h1 tag definitely seems the practical option in a scenario like that. What do you think?

[yianni88]

This is a good question! I try to always think of headings for a website as i would for a book just so i don't get confused. Obviously in a book, the title (book name) would be the h1. And then every chapter name would be h2 and so on. For this reason, i usually <h1> a brandname which is text on a website and <h2> the page titles.

However, keeping in mind the Google video you originally posted, perhaps this is not the correct way. Maybe if a brand is just text, we should turn it into an image and use the Alt tag and therefore save the h1 for the page title.

[David]

It really doesn't matter what form the brand takes (text or image) the fact is that it is a brand and not a heading. Think semantics.

[yianni88]

Very true!