Alt tag suitable replacement for critical text?

Question

I have a slogan on my home page that will not appear in text anywhere else. The problem is part of the slogan needs to be an image, for design requirements. Normally I would want to put this slogan in an H1 header and the title.

Question is whether or not this image will hurt my content indexing by search engines, and if an alt tag is an adequate alternative.

Thanks

Answer 1

1. Normally you shouldn't put your brand/logo as part of the H1 (but I assume that if you're referring just the homepage then it could be OK)
2. You should use ALTernate text (not a tag) for the image
3. Search Engines give little extra emphasis to weighting to Hx tags, they are treated similar to <em>, <strong> etc and are contextually weighted anyway (by position on page and proximity to other text)

The simple rule is, turn off images (replace images with ALTernate text) and view the page holistically - does it flow, read well and make sense. If it does, then you're on the right track. Don't get into SEO analysis-paralysis. Off-page factors are way more important than seeking perfection in small on-page matters...