img's as links-surely not good SEO?

[Dal123]

I'm trying to improve the poor colour scheme and effects on my basic site linked below.
So I thought maybe I'd have some sexy link buttons and effects etc. but then I thought I'll have to create imgages in photoshop and surely that's wrecking Search Engine Optimization? As I have links corresponding to my SEO. Surely using img buttons would have a detrimental effect on this?

[angelwatt]

The img tag provides an alt attribute that allows you to add the text that is in the image. The anchor tag has a title attribute that allows you to add a description for the link. These help maintain SEO when using imagery for links.

[Akitakoi]

Originally Posted by angelwatt

The img tag provides an alt attribute that allows you to add the text that is in the image. The anchor tag has a title attribute that allows you to add a description for the link. These help maintain SEO when using imagery for links.

I'm using dreamweaver and it prompts you for text. I have been just putting in a description of the product the site sells. Is there any guidelines for this? I'm sure I repeated the same phrase several times.

[Dal123]

Not sure exactly what you're saying there Akk.
I'm wondering if I should have text of my heading and the background as the same image, or I should have the background-image and text from the browser ontop of that?
I'm having terrible trouble positioning the image and even getting it to show up. I'm referring to <h2> on my index page. The image is not even showing up, though I did have it showing up a few hours ago. Now nothing. I've been on it about 7 hours and was not expecting it to be so difficult.

[IgnatiusTheKing]

You can use background images with text on top to have the best of both worlds.

[Dal123]

Cheers Ignatius, I just got it sorted. What I did was had to 'save as optimized' in Adobe Image Ready and that sorted it despite being as .png in first place.

[polar-blair]

Originally Posted by IgnatiusTheKing

You can use background images with text on top to have the best of both worlds.

Also if you didn't want the text to appear on top of the img you could set the text-indent to -1000 for example, you still have the text in the link for the SEo but you don't actually see it on screen and use a background img with CSS

[Macky-Mac]

Originally Posted by polar-blair

Also if you didn't want the text to appear on top of the img you could set the text-indent to -1000 for example, you still have the text in the link for the SEo but you don't actually see it on screen and use a background img with CSS

would using text that's the same color as the background work too?

[Dal123]

Cheers for input people, Macky you're correct I read a SEO tip on exactly what you've picked up on your own intuition .

[IgnatiusTheKing]

Originally Posted by Macky-Mac

would using text that's the same color as the background work too?

Yes that should work. You can also make the font size 0px to make it disappear.

[angelwatt]

Originally Posted by IgnatiusTheKing

Yes that should work. You can also make the font size 0px to make it disappear.

For me, I use a nosee class for things I want available for search engines and visually impaired visitors, like my text for "skipping to content." For some browsers, they'll skip text that has a font size of zero or a zero height/width so I try to keep them above zero for the visually-impaired. That's a very small percentage of web surfers though.

.nosee {
 width: 1px; height: 1px;
 overflow: hidden; float: right;
}

Originally Posted by Akitakoi

I'm using dreamweaver and it prompts you for text. I have been just putting in a description of the product the site sells. Is there any guidelines for this? I'm sure I repeated the same phrase several times.

You'll want to avoid putting the same phrase for an image on the same page. Repeating this can actually hurt SEO as Google and others will penalize for overstating text.

[B-Ryan]

Originally Posted by Macky-Mac

would using text that's the same color as the background work too?

That is considered Black Hat SEO and will get you banned from the SERPS

[IgnatiusTheKing]

It's not black hat if you are using an image of the exact same text, in the same location, as your navigation.

[SrWebDeveloper]

Originally Posted by Dal123

I'm having terrible trouble positioning the image and even getting it to show up. I'm referring to <h2> on my index page. The image is not even showing up, though I did have it showing up a few hours ago. Now nothing. I've been on it about 7 hours and was not expecting it to be so difficult.

I recommend using graphics with text overlay for nav menus, all controlled by CSS. There are plenty of dynamic menus you can customize which are jQuery plugins. Pick one, run it with default options and make sure it's cross browser compatible. Then start customizing.

The alt attribute of the image tag is intended to be used by screen readers or devices for the visually impaired. But it, along with the title attribute in links, can also be used to display additional information. Never repeat what's already displayed via text (aside from SEO, imagine if you're visually impaired listening to a screen reader, everything twice) so use the alt attribute to explain the graphic or add details in a brief manner not already evident onscreen. The best use of alt is to imagine the image isn't there, and word the alt text accordingly to describe the missing image's content.

-jim

[Dal123]

You'll want to avoid putting the same phrase for an image on the same page. Repeating this can actually hurt SEO as Google and others will penalize for overstating text.

Really? I had no idea of this. I'll have to watch out for that. Any other tips?

[SrWebDeveloper]

What follows is subjective of course, but good tips for most situations and certainly not the only tips. Here are some I've compiled over time...

Top 10 SEO tips:

1. Insert any keywords within the title tag so that search engine robots will know what your page is about. The title tag is located right at the top of your document within the head tags. Inserting a keyword or key phrase will greatly improve your chances of bringing targeted traffic to your site.
Make sure that the title tag contains text which a human can relate to. The text within each title tag is what shows up in a search result. Treat it like a headline.
2. Use the same keywords as anchor text to link to the page from different pages on your site. This is especially useful if your site contains many pages. The more keywords that link to a specific page the better.
3. Make very sure that the text within the title tag is also within the body of the page. It is unwise to have keywords in the title tag which are not contained within the body of the page.
Adding the exact same text for your h1 tag will tell the reader who clicks on your page from a search engine result that they have clicked on the correct link and have arrived at the page where they intended to visit. Robots like this too because now there is a relation between the title of your page and the headline.
Also, sprinkle your keywords throughout your article. The most important keywords can be bolded or colored in red. A good place to do this is once or twice in the body at the top of your article and in the sub-headings.
4. Do not use the exact same title tag on every page on your website. Search engine robots might determine that all your pages are the same if all your title tags are the same. If this happens, your pages might not get indexed.
I always use the headline of my pages as the title tag to help the robots know exactly what my page is about. A good place to insert the headline is within the h1 tag. So the headline is the same as the title tag text.
5. Do not spam the description or keyword meta tag by stuffing meaningless keywords or even spend too much time on this tag. SEO pros all agree that these tags are not as important today as they once were. I just place my headline once within the keywords and description tags.
6. Do not link to link-farms or other search engine unfriendly neighborhoods.
7. Do not use so called "doorway" pages. Doorway pages are designed for robots only, not humans. Search engines like to index human friendly pages which contain content which is relevant to the search.
8. Title attribute for text links. Insert the title attribute within the HTML of your text link to add weight to the link and the page where the link resides. This is like the alt tag for images.
My site contains navigation menus on the left and right of the page. The menu consists of links not images. When you hover over the link with your mouse, the title of the link appears. View the source of this page to see how to add this tag to your links.
9. Describe your images with the use of the alt tag. This will help search engines that index images to find your pages and will also help readers who use text only web browsers.
10. Submit to the search engines yourself. Do not use a submission service or submission software. Doing so could get your site penalized or even banned.
Here is the submission page for google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Submit only once. There is no need to submit every two weeks. There is no need to submit more than one page. Robots follow links. If your site has a nice link trail, your entire site will get indexed.

[angelwatt]

Originally Posted by SrWebDeveloper

8. Title attribute for text links. Insert the title attribute within the HTML of your text link to add weight to the link and the page where the link resides. This is like the alt tag for images.

I believe you meant the title attribute, but rather than the title tag. You covered the tag earlier. Good list by the way, I do all of those usually.

[SrWebDeveloper]

Thanks, I edited it in case anyone copy/pastes.

[Dal123]

Yeah great list Jim thanks much appreciated. I named all my images relevantly to keywords and in lightbox 2 I couldn't keep writing individual descriptions for the images because there was so many so listed keyword 'Formwork' so it was repeated a lot.Will this be penalised?

[splitpea]

You can also use plain text links and an image replacement technique to show only the images with whatever fancy font or effects you really want to use for your nav. It just means that when you add a page you have to make new graphics and update your stylesheets instead of just adding a link to a list.

[angelwatt]

Originally Posted by Dal123

I couldn't keep writing individual descriptions for the images because there was so many so listed keyword 'Formwork' so it was repeated a lot.Will this be penalised?

Google's analysis of pages is constantly evolving (as well as the other search engines) and SEO isn't an exact science, so it cannot be determined precisely if you have repeated the keywords too many times and will be penalized. Just use common sense, and don't add extra keywords without a good reason. Turn off all images, stylesheet, and JavaScript and take a look at the text on your page and see if you're using a word too much or it feel spammy.