Wanted: SEO suggestions

I've discovered that graphics-oriented web pages apparently have a down-side when it comes to SEO. For example, a text box that is modified (i.e. stretched), or one using a designer font, gets turned into a graphic to display properly. But graphics can't be read by search engines looking for text. So all those wonderful topic-related words that a search engine looks for become invisible to them, and only readable by visitors.

So I'd like some suggestions or references to other WD instructions that either warn about this or give some work-arounds. I'm also wondering how well alt tags are received by search engines compared to the real text the user sees, since the graphic text could have some added.

Another example is that search engines give higher priority to <h1> tags on words, over regular text. But I also noticed that large heading words put on the mastheads, menus and dropdowns, are also turned into graphics and become invisible. The same is true of javascripted display items with text - they are apparently ignored or can't be read either. So an unattractive text-based web site gets noticed by Google where a visually-attractive and more readable site gets ignored.

I think that a lot of people like me forget about SEO until after the site is designed. Any SEO suggestions, warnings, etc. would be useful.

Hi Starhunter, welcome to TG :D

Use Alt attributes for graphics, they are the recognised way as far as search engines are concerned. Alt attributes for graphical text will work but there is a limit to how many characters you can use.

Don't worry to much about Hx tags, the SE's treat them with some suspicion, especially if there are a lot of H1's. Bold text is just as good.

The SE's are getting much better at reading Javascript, links and popups should be no problem

I did some looking at my source code and actually have a suggestion for some of the issues mentioned. On masthead and menu text, I noticed that all of the words are converted into png files, like this one: src="index_htm_files/29.png" alt="" title="". And I noticed they all had the alt and title tag ready to be filled in with the same text. If I wanted to do it manually (and I probably should for SEO reasons) it would take a long time for all pages. But since these are all text items, I assume the program could be coded to put them within the alt and title sections before converting to the graphic.

We're already able to change text, size, colors & fonts, so the program knows we're working with text. I'm not a programmer, but it actually seems like it shouldn't be that hard, considering the incredible capabilities of the program as it is. I also looked at some of the javascript drop-down code and can see why search engines will not be able to read most of it. Isn't there some js code that can copy the menu text and segment it within the script to some engine-readable form?

I agree there should be an auto fill alt"" for text option in the website properties menu.

The alt="" attribute is for entering a description of the object when a browser doesn't show the actual image.
Example: alt="logo image"

If you want a better description for SEO (and for a popup label in browsers) use the title="" attribute
Example: title="TalkGraphics.com is a place for like-minded individuals to chat about graphics software, website design and more"

Both of these can be filled in using Web Properties>>Image[tab] (for Alt text) and >>Mouse-over [tab] (for Title)

The source then looks like this:
<img class="xr_ap" src="index_htm_files/1.png" alt="logo image" title="TalkGraphics.com is a place for like-minded individuals to chat about graphics software, website design and more" style="left: 399px; top: 14px; width: 287px; height: 208px;"/>

The methods will help a lot, although I came across a few issues: The menu bar items would need to be ungrouped first I assume. I also noticed that the predesigned text boxes, with text in the headings, would also have to be ungrouped. So it would seem that on a multitude of pages that had different text box headings, they'd each have to be done individually. With all the graphic tools available, it could be hard to know which text items were changed so they would be converted to a graphic. It just occurred to me that I'm not even sure if any of the unique fonts will automatically become a graphic, making it more cumbersome to be more creative.

I noticed that on the Web Properties>>Image[tab] there's also an option for setting the "Web Image Type", including "Let Xara choose automatically." Wouldn't it be handy to have another option included, like "Add same text to Title" and "Add same text to Alt" so it happens automatically? I've been discovering that Google gives less value to keyword meta tags than to naturally occurring keywords in the page. That's how I found out that many of my great keywords I used throughout pages did not show up anywhere in the source code - hence they were invisible.

It doesn't matter how many graphic layers your button has - it is exported as ONE image. Construction layers are only for the design stage.
If your text is grouped with the image it will always be included with the button graphic.
Button graphics and all images which have rounded corners, transparency effects etc are automatically exported as PNG type unless you tell xara otherwise.
Only photos are exported as JPG *unless* you add effects or rounded corners, then they will be exported as PNG to maintain WYSIWYG.

Any non-web safe font is automatically converted to an image is you GROUP the text to itself.

Try not to over-think this. Xara has done most of the hard work for you, they created Web Designer to be simple and easy to use for everybody.

Quote:

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The alt="" attribute is for entering a description of the object when a browser doesn't show the actual image.
Example: alt="logo image"

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I was referring to text based images created in WD, that it would be handy if the text in the image would be placed automatically into Web properties>> Image caption(alt text) up to the limit of course.

Quote:

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If you want a better description for SEO (and for a popup label in browsers) use the title="" attribute
Example: title="TalkGraphics.com is a place for like-minded individuals to chat about graphics software, website design and more"

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You wouldn't want to have title labels appearing when you hover over text.

Quote:

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You wouldn't want to have title labels appearing when you hover over text.

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Why not?

Some people use the cursor to follow where they are reading when there is a lot of text, the label would get in the way.

I am referring to text based images only:)
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I think another useful SEO feature would be to allow the original image name to stay the same instead of being changed to a number. I believe Google's image search uses both the alt tag and the image name itself, so having both with a keyword could give it a nice boost for searchers.

Images imported into Xara pages are copies, that is they are raster data loaded into vector space. Xara's roots are a vector illustration application, so things work slightly differently.
But to use the original or a unique name is quite easy to do in version 6 or Web Designer and Designer Pro 6.

Select the image on the page and right-click then choose 'Names...'
Enter the name you wish to call this image like this filename="myimagename" (do NOT add .jpg or .png) then press 'Add'

If the image is an untouched jpeg, xara will export it as a .jpg
If you want to force xara to export it as a .png or .jpg this can be done from the Web Properties>>Image [tab] under 'Web image type'

Thanks. It's amazing how flexible WD6 is!