Organization name as text vs. as a picture with alt text + Schema.org markup

[scienceisrad]

I'm looking for some feedback to implement best practice for the markup of our header/navigation at the top of our site.

Our organization name and a tag line is at the top of every page on the left, then our logo, then our navigation to items like "Topics" "FAQs" "About us" etc is to the right along the top.

Our organization name includes the most frequently searched keyword for what we want to rank on, and our organization name is our domain name.

A couple other background items: we're a non-profit startup and no code is public yet -- hence, I'll be explaining what we're going for.  We're coding in straight html/css, not using Wordpress or anything like that.

When we originally DIY coded our draft homepage and a few landing pages, we put the organization name and tag line into the markup as text, to look like this:

Organization name                    | Pretty |                        Navigation items over here
      Explanatory fun tag line       | Cool   |
--------------------------------------- |  Logo  | ---------------------------------------------------------

Then we outsourced the markup of two more landing pages to a company that does on-demand orders for responsive markup, based on png's we sent of the designs.  The company's code renders a fabulous looking version of our design, and important for usability, it is responsive.  The company also did something else I'm not so sure of.  They made one big image out of our organization name, tag line and logo ... because?  The indenting and different font sizes of the Organization name and tag line was too hard to code in?  Or is it just best practice for html standards, SEO, etc. to make it one big logo??

Now, as part of an overall effort I'm working on to reconcile our different code ... I'm mulling right now specifically on reconciling the different approaches we each took and incorporating new best practices for the header ... based on what I'm reading online about headers, including debates about whether to use h1 for your company name, whether using an image for the name is fine, advice about including Schema.org markup for logos, etc.

Given all this, which of these two options look better to you?  Do they seem equally good to you?  What would you change about the one that looks better to you?  What do I have wrong in them?  Or would you code this entirely differently to hit all best practices? What do you think about using h1 for organization name vs. is there a better tag to use for the organization name to code it in as text? (Note: we have other h1's on our pages for the actual article/content titles of each page, which maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't be having those as h1's?)

Option 1 -- using text for our name and tag line:

<header id="top" class="brandfont brandcolor">
[# Organization name

Explanatory fun tag line](/)

{navigation code here}
</header>

Option 2 -- name, tag line and logo all as one big png image:

<header id="header" class="container">

{navigation code here}
</header>

[BlueprintMarketing]

Well, thank you so much, I appreciate it.  No need to apologize about WordPress man everybody has their own thing. Be pretty boring if everyone had the same tastes.

I think I added this reference twice but not intentionally, however, it's fantastic for schema. I also threw in a copy of one of my favorites the perfect website launch

• https://builtvisible.com/the-future-of-seo-structured-markup/
• https://pantheon.io/sites/default/files/perfect-website-launch-pantheon-ebook_0.pdf

I do believe there are huge positives to sites without databases or decouple WordPress installs are getting exciting.

I thought you might want to check it out as it is a best of both worlds use any code including and HTML and the CMS is utilized as the backend only.  Decoupling the perfect blend of CMS and pretty much your choice of languages.

• https://pantheon.io/blog/decoupled-architecture-wordpress-and-drupal
• https://pantheon.io/wordpress/wordpress-enterprise-six-reasons-why

All the best,

Tom

[scienceisrad]

Wow, you've put together a wealth of information!  Thank you so much.  For the community as well, this is a great collection of info about schema.org markup.  It is great to get all the links, and it is great to know that you think option 2 is the better option, and it is great to get the additional examples of other schema.org markup.  Apologies if I'm a little prickly about Wordpress -- I do use it for some things, but not using it here, so it is fabulous to be able to talk markup in detail with you

[BlueprintMarketing]

Okay, I was not trying to imply anything negative when I asked about a CMS.

You can do quite a bit with cookie-cutter WordPress you have tens of thousands of developers working on your side.

because everyone has their opinion so I wish you the very best with your site and I have added something that is great for SEO's of all levels I think it will be helpful.

• https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
• http://www.seobythesea.com/category/semantic-search/ ( Probably the foremost expert in structured data)
• http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/using-microdata-to-markup-structured-data
• https://clarknikdelpowell.com/blog/google-schema-support-for-logos-and-what-that-means-for-css/
• http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/writing-semantic-microformats-amp-microdata-in-html-markup
• https://builtvisible.com/the-future-of-seo-structured-markup/
• https://builtvisible.com/the-future-of-seo-structured-markup/
• http://tools.ranksider.com/rich-snippets

Knowledge graph important if you want that real estate to the right-hand side of your URL whenever it's queried.

[organization name]
[Website]([website url])
Follow us on [Twitter]([profile url]), [Facebook,]([profile url]) [Google+ and]([profile url]) [LinkedIn]([profile url]).

"In a site design where your company/org name and logo is at the top of every page on your site, is it better to have your organization name (which contains your most important keyword) and tag line in an h1 within the header than it is to have it in an image file which gives the organization name and tag line as alt text?  Or does that not matter to SEO?"

It does not matter except for being aesthetically pleasing. The H1 tag and the logo have two different roles and if there on the site H1 preferably used once with proper keywords. The logos an image, so the alt text is all Google gets in addition to indexing the image naturally. Brand awareness is important, but the logo in the left-hand corner and the logo is attractive to the end-user

"Is there some other tag that's better to use on your organization name in your header other than h1?  Better for SEO and/or better for html standards and semantics?"

Use the title tag to reference your organization's name as end-users will see it before they click on your site. This is vital, and I have seen great results combining the title tag with the H1 you can use structured data as well.

"-Is putting your organization name, tag line and logo all together into one big image a best practice?  I did not send the developer that as one big png.  Only the logo itself was in the png I sent, and I was expecting our organization name and tag line to be coded using css styling to have the tag line indent, not for them to make a new png."

Normally yes that is the best way to do it. I cannot speak for your designer however it sounds like you are asking a designer to create CSS when you are a developer that prefers to hand build. You are going to have to work that one out with them. site speed is always affected when you add numerous CSS files. Combine them and minify them.

To answer your question between the two examples for search engine purposes there is realistically almost no difference. They are both going to function very similarly I would personally check out some generators or some sites from developers you admire. The way that your code looks is not as important is the way it functions. I think these examples have  if I had to make a choice I would go with number two however you definitely want to check out schema.org

"Option 1 -- using text for our name and tag line:

<header id="top" class="brandfont brandcolor">
# Organization name
### Explanatory fun tag line

{navigation code here}
</header>

"

or

"Option 2 -- name, tag line and logo all as one big png image:

<header id="header" class="container">

{navigation code here}
</header>

"

It’s as easy as including the following code in your website (with the correct file names and locations, of course):

  [Home](http://www.yourcompany.com/)
  ![](http://www.yourcompany.com/logo.png)
" data-snippet-id="ext.8ba7444c005a97ebcfda9fb38f150bdc" data-snippet-saved="false" data-codota-status="done"> `[Home](http://www.yourcompany.com/)
  ![](http://www.yourcompany.com/logo.png)` 

1. Best practices suggest that your logo should be a stand-alone file (not part of a banner image), visible on your home page, and should not be animated.
2. If your site doesn’t use image tags to display your logo, but rather uses CSS to place your logo, you can use meta tags in your code, like this:

# [Your Company](http://www.yourcompany.com/")

meta itemprop="logo" content="/images/logo.png" />
" data-snippet-id="ext.2b48ae5fa74df60ff44da6954bb1f3c2" data-snippet-saved="false" data-codota-status="done"> `# [Your Company](http://www.yourcompany.com/")

meta itemprop="logo" content="/images/logo.png" />` 

1. Or, if your site uses JSON-LD or another supported programming syntax, you can use this code, which was added by Google last month:

      {
      "@context": "http://schema.org/",
      "@type": "Organization",
      "url": "http://www.yourcompany.com/",
      "logo": "http://www.yourcompany.com/logo.png"
      }
    " data-snippet-id="ext.c765c0f8ab5d485846e742be74338714" data-snippet-saved="false" data-codota-status="done">

Whichever code you use on your site, be sure to test it with Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool before going live.

What does the Schema.org markup do?

It simply tells the search engines that the image located at “http://www.yourcompany.com/logo.png” is the logo file they should use when they display it in search results.

so I would pick something a little bit more like this.

    <title itemprop="name">Article's Web Page Title</title>

<header>

# The Article's Headline

        <time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="1990-11-12">November 12, 1990</time>

By [Author Name](#author-profile.html)

      </header>

      Summary of the article. This could be the lead, excerpt, abstract, or introductory paragraph.

The main body of the article goes here.

<footer>

This article was updated on
          <time itemprop="dateModified" datetime="2015-03-01">March 30, 2015</time>

## Related Articles

[A Related Article](#related-article.html)

[Another Related Article](#related-article-02.html)

      </footer>

"> `<title itemprop="name">Article's Web Page Title</title>

<header>

# The Article's Headline

        <time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="1990-11-12">November 12, 1990</time>

By [Author Name](#author-profile.html)

      </header>

      Summary of the article. This could be the lead, excerpt, abstract, or introductory paragraph.

The main body of the article goes here.

<footer>

This article was updated on
          <time itemprop="dateModified" datetime="2015-03-01">March 30, 2015</time>

## Related Articles

[A Related Article](#related-article.html)

[Another Related Article](#related-article-02.html)

      </footer>` 

http://codepen.io/blueprintmrk/pen/XKqwgk

I hope this helps,

Tom

[scienceisrad]

No, we are not using a CMS.  And there are no plans to start using a CMS.
If we do start using something, it would be something to manage the code, not the content.  We will not be using Wordpress.  We loathe Wordpress, and it is not a fit for our content to have a cookie cutter looking Wordpress site.  We enjoy writing html and css, and the company I outsourced some of the html and css coding to -- the LOOK of what they delivered and its responsiveness is excellent.

So we will have complete control over all the code/markup, and Wordpress won't be coming in to make our code choices redundant.

I guess the basics of my questions are -- in terms of SEO and overall best practice in your site's html:

-In a site design where your company/org name and logo is at the top of every page on your site, is it better to have your organization name (which contains your most important keyword) and tag line in an h1 within the header than it is to have it in an image file which gives the organization name and tag line as alt text?  Or does that not matter to SEO?

-Is there some other tag that's better to use on your organization name in your header other than h1?  Better for SEO and/or better for html standards and semantics?

-Is putting your organization name, tag line and logo all together into one big image a best practice?  I did not send the developer that as one big png.  Only the logo itself was in the png I sent, and I was expecting our organization name and tag line to be coded using css styling to have the tag line indent, not for them to make a new png.

-Are these two code options doing the schema.org  markup correctly?

[BlueprintMarketing]

I will respond to this in full do you mind if I ask a quick question? Are you using a CMS

Because there is going to be a lot that you cannot necessarily control. You're asking about structure when you're talking about navigation and coding so you are going to need to develop the site with a good developer and they will most likely suggest a CMS something like WordPress I assume. This will  many times make the format either redundant or not worth it. If you could break your question down into parts I would really appreciate it.

I don't see anything wrong with either one of them just remember the micro data is for end-users and Google open graph is normally what you see around the header of the website JSON-LD is completely invisible to the end-user but used by Google extensively.