H1 Tags on Feature Page iBlog4 Pro

[jingram 1]

So here is the rundown. I have created a feature page in iBlog4 Pro that I am using as my home page on the site... consider it a landing page of sorts. My issue is that by default, the iBlog theme is setup to use the H1 tag only for "features" on the feature page, even though, it is ideally suited for a landing page where one wants say the site title to be used for the H1 tag. A prime example of this type of setup is the iBlog 4 Demo. My site is setup almost identically to this which indicates to me that was the intent of the designers. This leaves people with two options. Either create a dummy post at the beginning of the feature as a sort of welcome message which really defeats the purpose of using that mechanism for features or you can try and apply the H1 tag to the first image in the feature or hide the H1 tag text via CSS. Problem with those options are that Google penalizes you, at least from everything I have read. This has led to this strange issue on my site where I have content pages being indexed appropriately and ending up in top 10 search results, but the home page not showing up at all in the google index even though the keywords being used for the search are in the actual domain name for the site. It seems as if SEO wasn't really much of a thought when the theme was put together. Ideally, the H1 tag would be used for the site title on the homepage and the posts/page title on any other pages. This is the way the default Wordpress Twenty Ten theme is setup. This setup makes sense... it gives you home page site title the place of importance for SEO and for your posts, it gives the post title the place of importance for SEO. What I have found in iBlog 4 Pro is that only H2 tags are being used on post pages, and H1 tags on the feature page are designed to highlight those features, not the site title. This is especially problematic since if you use multiple H1 tags on that feature page it Google really seems to discount the importance of that tag in its indexing. So, the question is, what is the best way to deal with this H1 tag/SEO issue on that home page/landing page? Site is: www.adventurekayaking.org Currently I used on H1 tag on the first feature on the feature page, but ideally the H1 tag is supposed to be above any H2 tags, which in this case it is not because of how the feature is strucured. Here is the code:

<h1><mg src="http://www.adventurekayaking.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/steripenfeature.png" alt="AdventureKayaking.org is your portal for news and information on adventure kayaking, expedition kayaking, kayaking trips, kayak camping, and gear reviews!" /></h1>

I pulled the i out of the above since it wanted to display the picture anyway. As it is, I am not even sure if Google will look at this and give it any "credit" or will it penalize me? It seems like Platform Pro doesn't have these SEO issues? Any help would be most appreciated!

[jingram 1]

bump

[catrina 103]

Are you using any SEO plugin that can provide better results for what you're looking for?