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Oct
22

Making the right use of header images in blogs

Most often sites are designed with a graphic header, especially blogs which come with all sorts of funky header images. It is often an image of the company logo occupying the full-page width or a nice looking picture that covers the entire width and stands 100 or 200 pixels high. The reason why people do this is to give that unique look to your blog. There are guys who argue that it even gives your blog that individuality, that visitors can even recognize your blog from that header image. True, even I’ve used it in the old times (remember the green header?)

Well my recommendation is that, don’t do it!

The upper part of a page(above the fold) is a very valuable place. Be it advertisement or placing important content that will get user’s instant attention. You should insert your most important keywords in this area for best seo practice.

In case of a graphic image, that prime position is wasted since search engines can not make good use of knowing your content from the images(except their ALT tags). Sometimes you may come across completely absurd situations: the header contains text information, but to make its appearance more attractive, it is created in the form of an image. The text in it cannot be indexed by search engines and so it will not contribute toward the page rank. If you must present a logo, the best way is to use a hybrid approach – place the graphic logo at the top of each page and size it so that it does not occupy its entire width. Use a text header to make up the rest of the width.

This is particularly effective, if you had to put in a logo or a picture of your’s for that “branding” while wanted to save space for SEO. Try to use the space maximum for describing what your site is about or try a descriptive sitename.

You can use the CSS to make custom H1 tags for the header and this will make text appear like the image, so the same effect of header image can be achieved while you are using the best SEO metrics. But using a header image to cover up the entire header space with just the ALT tags is not at all a good idea, though it looks good, what lies beneath is actually what counts when

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Category: SEO Tips | Author: Mani Karthik
SEO Wordpress Themes
  1. maneeshNo Gravatar

    I am “guilty” of using a big header image..

    my personal point was as you mentioned to giv my blog a unique and memorable look right at the start..

    another reason to use this was because my blog is relatively new on the net.. and at this point don’t have enough content to catch my audience attention for more than one read.. some are.. but most of them are regular posts.. so some eye candy certainly helps in retaining and givin a good vibe till some excellent content comes in..

    alos I have made the bg of my header ina way that I can also incorporate title text into it.. and it is indexed as well..

    to conclude i guess its a choice.. sometimes pictures say things better than words and soemtimes the other.. one has to use the more potent one in conveyingh te blogs message

    Reply

  2. Mani KarthikNo Gravatar

    Maneesh, you are right. Since you’ve used the text below header, you might also want to add an image ALT and Title attribute if you’d like some more keyword indexing there?

    Reply

  3. maneeshNo Gravatar

    I was going to add that as a point.. using alt tags for images also helps in validation of a site (learned that yesterday :) )

    but some themes hav this easy way of putting a header image.. small potato’s greed for example .. wherein you point the url of image from the admin panel of wp.. how would one add alt tags to such headers?

    Reply

  4. kher Cheng GuanNo Gravatar

    But according to Nate Whitehill, he says that the header image is important.” This is usually the first image people see when they get to your site. If it is not eye-catching, people may not even read your content because your site did not catch their attention.” So?

    Reply

  5. Mani KarthikNo Gravatar

    I have to disagree with it Kher. The importance of header image cannot be generalized. if it’s a content rich website, I don’t think a header image will carry much importance as it would in a less content(textual) rich website. But yes, if at all you are keen on using one, it better be eye catching.

    Reply

  6. Mani KarthikNo Gravatar

    Maneesh, you have to edit the template file (it should be header.php or sometimes single.php. not very sure) and add the ALT tag manually. If you are keen, I can help you with it.

    Reply

  7. kher Cheng GuanNo Gravatar

    frankly, i believe and accept your view. Personally. i don’t think a image header is that important. i read your clinical-white blog for its rich and useful content. anyway, using an image header has become a cliche. Though they are of different pictures/photos, visually, they all appear SIMILAR to the point of generic.

    Reply

  8. praveen kumarNo Gravatar

    Very often sites are designed with a graphic header. Often, we see an image of the company logo occupying the full-page width. Do not do it! The upper part of a page is a very valuable place where you should insert your most important keywords for best seo

    Reply

  9. Brad HartNo Gravatar

    There is one thing you can do to make use of a large header image and which is catchy to search engines too.

    You can first off pull the old image map trick if you are a savvy designer. It gives you a great graphical interface for which you can included static ad or banner links. If you build it right you can put all the SEO info into it you want

    Another trick which I am doing on Brad’s Tiny World is to put all the important SEO information in, but make it non existent to the view through CSS tricks. Transparent and 1px will fool the viewer, but doesn’t bother a search engine

    Reply

  10. FH2oNo Gravatar

    Great basic information and one we take for granted for best SEO results. Thanks.

    Reply

  11. Header Tags – What are they ? Where and How to Use Them Effectively | Peer Marketing Group

    [...] Making the right use of header images in blogs [...]





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Mani Karthik Hi, I'm Mani Karthik, SEO, Blogging & Social Media Enthusiast. I primarily blog about SEO and Social Media on this blog, basically How-to articles and tutorials to help the SEO learner. Feel free to have a look around and drop comments. Hope you enjoy your stay.
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