<h1> Header tags on text or Images with <alt> for SEO?

[Draeger]

Or both??

Hi,

I asked a question here on the forums a week or so ago regarding the importance of using <alt> text within images.

Now I'm working on a new project and the flow of the design looks much better if I use images containing text instead of just plain text within my header tags on each page.

My main reason for wanting to use images in place of the header tags is that in this instance they can contain a font that is in keeping with the theme and look of the site, it is the same font I used for the main logo but by the same token it is a font that would be unlikely to be found on most peoples PC's by default.

So I'm wondering a couple of things regarding the importance of <h1>, <h2>, <h3> tags etc.

1. How important are they as far as SEO goes these days?.

Looking through W3C and a few other sites it would seem that a fair bit of importance is still placed upon them as far as the structure and hierarchical content of a page goes. What are your thoughts on this, folks?.

2. Is it possible to use something like the following HTML to get the best of both worlds or would the likes of Google consider this to be bending the rules? :-

<h1><img src="level-1-headline.png" alt="This is a level 1 headline"></h1>

I would really like to stick with the images as titles for each section of my pages as they look so much better, however I don't want to limit anything as far as serps go and a little voice inside my head is saying "Play it safe - go with plain text".

Any ideas guys?.

 

[Draeger]

Thanks for those links m8, appreciate them.

Makes for interesting reading. I found a thread on the subject on the webmasterworld forums running to 4 pages with lots of interesting discussion.

For now, I have decided to play it safe and go with plain text. Been working on the project most of today. This morning I was tempted to throw caution to the wind and go for the images wrapped in <h1> tags but after reading some of that it looks like I will need to delve into my CSS and make some alterations there to get it to work properly.

Thanks again for the linkage!!.