H2 tags with Images

[Frank Benjamin]

I am working on making some articles look nicer and this includes using images for the subsections. I was going to use CSS for this, but it doesn't work correct on mobile devices when the words and image takes up multiple lines.

Since many sites use H1 tags on the homepage around the logo, I was wondering about doing with with H2 tags. Will Google and other spiders treat the words in the image alt element between H2 tags the same as it would with text?

[Frank Benjamin]

I stumbled upon a comment on a blog post that referred to HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide. The last one I found was the 6th Edition published in 2009.

According to it :


A heading may contain any element allowed in text, including conventional text, link anchors (<a>), images (<img>), line breaks (<br>), font embellishments (<b>, <i>, <tt>, <u>, <strike>, <big>, <small>, <sup>, <sub>, and <font>), and content-based style changes (<cite>, <code>, <dfn>, <em>, <kbd>, <samp>, <strong>, and <var>).


I take that to mean that as long as the alt attribute is used, the text within will carry the weight of the H tag associated with it.

[universal4]

Alt tags are designed to used to show what an image is, if in fact the visitor has images turned off or is using a screen reader, such as a blind person using accessibility features.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...e+alt+tags+for

Years ago I too was using alt tags incorrectly, and have been slowly changing that.

In fact, most browsers stopped showing alt tags on mouse over many revisions ago, however title tags show on mouse over.

I wonder if you are correct in your theory or not, since I do not recall Google ever making a statement that supports it. I do recall many theories surrounding the problems associated with keyword stuffing alt tags though.

Do alt tags or title tags show in mouse overs on mobile browsers?

Rick
Universal4

[Frank Benjamin]

My question has nothing to do with mouse-over.

Since Google can't read an image, that is what Alt attributes are for. My theory is that they would read the alt attributes and correspond with that encapsulated H tag.

I read somewhere that Google looks at alt attributes "similar" to text in the H tags. But I am still looking to confirm this.

[Frank Benjamin]

I think moving forward, it will be safer to have text within h-tags above the unique image (with alt tags of course).

I tried an SEO Browser and it simply shows black H2 tags.

[universal4]

I was not trying to imply that your question was about mouse over, however that did come in to play years ago, due to the fact it DID show in the browser, but now that it has now changed, I wonder if it has the same seo benefit as it once did (if it did at all).

I agree that text surrounding the image, whether above or below, is safer and also provides more emphasis for the visitor.

I also wonder if the title tag carries any weight at all.

Rick
Universal4

[Frank Benjamin]

Sorry, I was confused to why the mouse over was mentioned. Now I understand....

Part of me thinks Google would look at the alt text similar, but the other part sees how it could be abused. But Google I would also think Google would be smart enough to penalize the abusers.

also provides more emphasis for the visitor.

That is what I am thinking and is why I changed the particular blog post. Instead of making it redundant and using the same text that is in the image and alt attribute, I made the H2 tags a question using the keywords or a synonym.

I appreciate the replies Universal. Even though I am no longer doing betting sites, I like the SEO tips, conversation and debates in this forum and the answers could usually be used anywhere.

[universal4]

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

May I suggest you give a try to using a little bit of title tags and see if that in fact helps the click through or conversion also?

I try to be careful when using them, and in cases where I do use them I try to make sure the alt tags are still there (since these SHOULD be used for correct validation) but I try and use them to define what the image is.

Example
> alt="horiziontal line"
> alt="logo image"
> alt="Uptown Aces Casino image" title="Click here to visit today"

This is really a good debate since I do not recall Google actually making a statement on how much weight (if any) they give either alt text or title text.

Thought provoking....

Rick
Universal4

[Frank Benjamin]

I did read somewhere today that it is ok to use a title attribute with an image even though they are typically for text links. I want to say that the title attribute really doesn't carry weight since it is often used like you mention, but I am not positive if I read that or I'm just hypothesizing. However, a properly used alt attribute would provide information about the image and, if within h tags, would provide information about the content following the tag. But, as mentioned above, I am going to include text within the h tags above or below the image.

[TomPregon]

Personally, I would not use h2 for images. It might be seen as over optimizing your site. Once that stamp has been given to your site, it will be hard to recover from. Initially they are not made for optimizing images, so I would not do it. alt= is correct for images, and title= would be correct if there is a link to it as well. Again, this is my personal opinion. If you want to use h2 for images, I would do it sparsely ( thinly scattered or distributed) But I am not sure whether or not it would have any positive results. The risk of it been seen as 'over optimizing' your site might not be worth trying it out?

[universal4]

The actual reason for an alt tag is to state WHAT the image is, not the benefit of clicking. This is designed to help those who turn off images determine what the image is (since that text will show) or for screen readers when someone uses them (especially those with vision problems).

Anything that does not fit that could actually be considered "over optimization".

Many of us that built sites 100 years ago are guilty of this, and I often find myself fixing this on older pages.

Rick
Universal4