I've had a website for 5 years and has had great success in SEO and organic traffic, but I've used a text-based page name & logo all this time like this: <h1>Website Name</h1>. It's now been redesigned and is a jpg image, but I'm afraid of having negative SEO consequences by removing the text. I'm also afraid of trying to trick Google by having text not visible on the screen- as all my income is dependent on Google adsense. Surely millions of developers deal with this same issue: what is the best SEO practice for using an H1 tag on the home page, when your logo/sitename is a .jpg?
If your site name (title as you put it) is important in regards to your exisiting SERPS then move it up a bit. EG stick the name in your "Title" at the end after your keywords. There your problem me thinks perhaps is solved? Just use "alt tag" and "title" attribute for your logo image.
Sure there are 900 million other site owners who deal with this same issue? It's a fact that your home page needs a <h1> tag with Keyword of page, and it's a fact that the image already says the title, but its an image and doesn't give you SEO credit like text does. So, with no room for text, and using an image only, what does everyone do? Google.com doesn't even optimize its own site- does not have a <h1> tag on its homepage, yahoo does, and has invisible text that doesn't show on the screen, which gives them SEO credit, but is against Google's terms of service, so they are at risk of being banned. Here's their code: <h1><a href="http://hsrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AmboMGlSBmY6cu1CVKxRTvWbvZx4/RV=1/RE=1369757132/RH=aHNyZC55YWhvby5jb20-/RO=2/RU=aHR0cDovL3d3dy55YWhvby5jb20v/RS=^ADA.iG606PgFZ3z3rFKHlrEbDD1Xxc-" class="y-logo img-sprite ti">Yahoo!</a></h1> Code (markup): Bing doesn't use an h1 tag, but has invisible text like Yahoo, and is also at risk of being banned: <div class="hp_sw_logo hpcLogoWhite">Bing</div> Code (markup): So, what is a guy to do?