Use H1 or image on sitename?

I believe that it is a huge different, but how? Is there anybody had done the experiment about H1 on site name?

 

H1 is used mainly signify the text on the page. Is that what you meant?

 

Yes webcosmo.

You can take a look at my site. Every pages have the same H1 tag using for site name while H2 tags holding each page topic.

http://www.applemood.com/

<title>Apple Mood</title>
<h1>Apple Mood</h1>

Code (markup):

http://www.applemood.com/macbook/

<title>Apple MacBook | Apple Mood</title>
<h1>Apple Mood</h1>
<h2>Apple MacBook</h2>
Talks about Apple Macbook blah blah blah....

Code (markup):

http://www.applemood.com/ipod/

<title>iPod | Apple Mood</title>
<h1>Apple Mood</h1>
<h2>iPod</h2>
Talks about iPods blah blah blah....

Code (markup):

Now I am considering to replace those H1 site name tag with an image, and give the precious H1 to topic name. But I'm not sure doing this will result in better SERP or not. Of course there are still many things need to be modified but I'd like to focus on this issue first.


Any advice?

 

Nice example

 

It depends if your sitename has relevant keywords or explains what the site is about. For example, if you had a site on DVDs which was called 'Galaxy Wire' or something like that, it might be more efficient using that in an image instead. Likewise if you had a site called 'Galaxy DVDs' then using H1 would be fairly relevant for it.

 

I agree with Milesblank, that you should use the name of your website only if it contains relevant keywords and otherwise put the name of your website in an image and use the header element <h1> for the most relevant subject of that particular webpage. I'd go with the following:

Homepage:

<title>Apple Mood | ...</title>
<img src=”...” alt=”Apple Mood website logo” />
<h1>Apple Mood</h1>

Code (markup):

On the homepage the name of your website is the most important, so that should definitely be placed in the title element and in the header element <h1>. I also recommend you to replace the dots with a very brief description of your website using a popular keyword phrase that includes the manufacturer's name, such as “Apple forum” or “Apple reviews”, but not "MacBook forum" or "MacBook reviews".

Product page:

<title>Apple MacBook | Apple Mood</title>  or  <title>Apple MacBook ... | Apple Mood</title>
<img src=”...” alt=”Apple Mood website logo” />
<h1>Apple MacBook</h1>  or  <h1>Apple MacBook ...</h1>

Code (markup):

On the product page, the name of your website is less important than the name of the product you're promoting. This means that the product name should definitely appear both in the title element and in the header element <h1>. Whether you also add the name of you website to the title element is not that important, but it should not appear in the header element. An image with the website logo will do. Again, if there are relevant and keyphrases that include the product name, put them on the dots. You may want to add more keyphrases that include the name of the product, e.g. “MacBook reviews”, if relevant. Whatever you do, it should look natural and you shouldn't stuff either the title element or the header elements or anything else basically with keywords.

 

For in the header its better to do a image for branding purposes.

 

Thanks! You guys are so sweet!

 

The H1 heading is used to denote the top-most level heading of a Web page, which usually corresponds with the page title. If you use the H1 as your site title, not only will it defeat the purpose of the H1 heading, but you'll also waste valuable keyword real estate for the relevant keywords that are targeting a specific page.

Which is why I always advocate using an image instead of a H1 for the logo. Always.