Hi, my site http://www.learningsteps.com ranks #15 for computer training - now i have been given advice that i should 'Removing the images from your headings and using actual text could be enough to get you into the top 10. If you still want the images to be present (for the visual aspect), you can look into CSS background images (for the presentational aspects) or just cover up the entire heading with a CSS based image substitution technique (just make sure the text is still visible when images are disabled).' my code loads the images from css already, but i wonder is this good css or even seo - here is the code - according to some seo my h1 tags should be read first after the <body> statement - how could i achieve this with css. Any help would be much appreciated. <body> <table border="0"><tr><td width="15%"></td> <td width="70%"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"> <tr><td width="50%" class="bg1"><img src="images/px1.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="Online Training and Computer training courses." border="0"></td><td valign="bottom" class="bgleft"><img src="images/bg_left.gif" alt="Try our free video tutorials training courses." width="17" height="16" border="0"></td> <td> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="780"> <tr><td align="right"></td></tr> </table> <table width="780" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr><td class="bg" width="220" height="155"><div id="nav-menu"> <ul><li><a href="http://www.learningsteps.com" title='Your Source for online computer training courses and tutorials.'>Home</a></li><li><a href='login.php' title='Click here to login to your online computer training courses and tutorials.'>Login</a></li> <li class="c2"><script type="text/javascript" src="menu_data.js"> </script></li></ul></div></td></tr> </table> Kind Regards Fergal.
Well people tend to pursue tableless layouts now, which ensures cleaner markup with possible SEO benefits due to this. As for "good" CSS, it could certaintly be improved, as if you went with the above option, it would result in probably half of the code you are using now. Many aspects could be improved, for example: <h1 class="c4">, there is no real need to give a class to the h1 here in my opinion. However while this is not at a disadvantage to SEO, it's up to yourself to decide whether you care about a cleaner more efficent layout which results in a small reduction in loading time, better browser compatability, that has easier management and enhanced presentation in my opinion. By H1 appearing first this means that the H1 tag appears directly after the <body> is opened, or directly after the header/nav is closed. Inside the H1 tag you would have the heading of the page/ relating to keywords also.
If you weren't asking for help and I saw that site, the first thing I'd do is report it to Google for keyword stuffing. Seriously. If you want to use an image substitution technique, use one like this: http://www.pmob.co.uk/temp/navimagereplace.htm