Image replacement for h1 logos - semantic or not? 05.01.2009 @ 12:30pm

For years I have used the well known image replacement technique for my logos and placed them within an <h1> tag but I recently started to wonder exactly how semantic (or not) using that technique actually is...

Ideally, the <h1> should only ever appear once within a page to show that it is the most important information on the page. This instantly creates problems when you come to subpages on your site. Things like "About me" and "My portfolio" are really what should appear in h1's because they are describing the whole page content and subsequently, SEO is improved. However, if you have already used a h1 for you logo, you are then forced to lower the importance of these subpage headers by placing them in h2's.

So, I wondered... should a logo really be an h1 and should we use image replacement? For the SEO/semantic reasons above I concluded that it shouldn't be an h1, but what should it be instead?

In my opinion, to actually SEE the graphical representation of a logo is important. It's a visualisation that associates itself with you/your business and therefore ensures people think of you when they see similar shapes/colours or even a blank page with your logo on it. It's not there for aesthetics, it's there to represent you. I believe that because of this the user should always see it, it's an informative image and should be marked up as one.

<a href="/home/" id="logo">
    <img src="logo.png" alt="company name" />
</a>

This way, a user will always see your logo with or without CSS and you're marking it up for what it really is. What do you think?

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Who am I?

I am Jenna Smith - a front end web developer who has been busy coding XHTML & CSS for the last 6 years. If you are interested in seeing my work or getting in touch you can do so through my growldesign website.