WordPress SEO : Use a H1 Widget to Replace the H1 Header Code

Comment on WordPress Theme Development by SEO Dave.

To add to the above if you wanted to keep it simple you could strip out all the H1 code and add a replacement H1 as a widget.

In the Stallion SEO Theme there’s a lot more options and layouts than with Talian and some of them completely disable the header area so there’s no home page link within a H1 which meant there’s no H1 header on some layouts.

For users who wanted this layout I added a H1 Header Replacement widget that basically mimicked the H1 text link as just a H1 header (not a link) that holds the site title. Like the header.php code this loads a H1 header on the homepage, monthly archives and a span code for posts, pages, cats and tags.

This is the Stallion widget code, add it as is to the bottom of the functions.php file of Talian and you should get a new widget which can be added to a sidebar.

<?php
function st_h1re() { ?>
<?php if (is_page("archives") || is_year() || is_month() || is_day() || is_home() || is_404() || is_author()) { ?><h1 style="font-size: 1.1em; font-weight: normal;"><span class="gat_widget"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></span></h1><?php } ?>
<?php if (is_category() || is_single() || is_page() || is_search() || is_tag()) { ?><span class="gat_widget"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></span><?php } ?>
<?php if(st_tagline()=='1'){ ?><p><?php bloginfo('description'); ?></p>
<?php } ?>
<?php } wp_register_sidebar_widget(
'st_h1re',
'Stallion H1 Replacement',
'st_h1re',
array(
'description' => 'Stallion SEO Theme H1 Header Replacement for sites with Title Link OFF (Under Layout Options).'
)
);
?>

It includes the tagline as well, if you want the tagline elsewhere delete the relevant code. Reasonably sure the CSS will work with Talian.

If you use this widget you can do whatever you want with the header.php home page link, I would remove the H1 code (you don’t want two sets of H1s) and have it as a basic clickable image link with alt text as the title of the site.

What you are trying to achieve is kind of possible with Stallion with no code editing. There’s two types of header areas with Stallion and one of the includes a clickable image link which can have randomly rotating images or a fixed image example at Images and Pictures Photography Blog (refresh the page, new image loads). In Stallion the top header part (with the link back to home and tagline) can be disabled which would leave the clickable image at the top of the page, which is what you are trying to achieve. Example of end result with one clickable image and the H1 replacement header in place (warning site filled with racists slagging one another off!). The widget with heading “Really Funny Stuff” is the H1 replacement widget and the text below it is the tagline.

My long term plan is to update Talian to use the Stallion code, just have to figure out how to do it without causing a major headache for myself on theme updates :-)

David