SEO Implications of using Images for Article Titles

[JakeWarren]

Hi guys! New to Moz Pro. I just recently completed an online course with Moz...

I have a client who is writing some new content for their site, and we are approaching it with SEO in mind. I was wondering about using an image with text on it as the article title, instead of an actual "text on the page" title. Wondering if that's going to "cost" us anything, SEO wise.

I guess we could use alt-text/title/description fields to make sure the keywords are crawlable for our article title but do they have less "weight" than a standard title? How does that work? Hope my question makes sense.

Article header attached

mB0PXsA.jpg

[JakeWarren]

Very good to know this ... was concerned that it is exactly as you are describing (quite a cost to remove

tags)! Thanks for your response.

[EGOL]

On a lot of my pages, I have an

title at the top, often with

below it.   Below them, spanning the entire width of the page, I will have a wide format image with a relevant caption.  I think that it is important for the visitors to have an interesting image at the top.  If I don't have one spanning the entire width of the page, then I have my best image at top of the right column.  We often spend good amounts of money on these article-opening images.  We also use these images on category pages and recommended readings lists to advertise the articles to all visitors of the site.

[hughsonpaul]

I agree with EGOL on using text based article title.  You will get more SEO benefit if you have a clear page heading i.e text based article title at the beginning of the page. This way you'll also get a chance to target other keywords in the image alt tags.

[EGOL]

I would not use an image as a replacement for a title line on any of my websites.

I want the

at the top in text rather than in the alt attribute of an image.

If I had a designer who insisted on this, that designer would not be working for me for another minute.  In my opinion, the

text is that important.