On the homepage of Diffily.com : "The Website Manager's Handbook" I have a headline "The Website Manager's Handbook". I want to use as much semantic markup as possible, so I have marked as a H1 using the following tag

h1.homepage_bannerarea {
font-size: 300%; color: #ffff00; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 80%; BORDER: #cccc00 0px solid; margin-bottom: -0.25em;
}

However, I now want to make this a hyperlink, with states for LINK, HOVER, ACTIVE and VISITED. How do I do that?

Is is something like

h1.homepage_bannerarea a.link { etc }
h1.homepage_bannerarea a.hover { etc }
h1.homepage_bannerarea a.active { etc }
h1.homepage_bannerarea a.visited { etc }

If so, will it still remain 'semantically' as a HEADING 1?

Thanks

you need to give it an id:

__________________
:. Web Design & Development Web Design Ireland
:. Search Engines Optimization Search Engines Optimization
:. Directory Submission Directory Submission
:. News & Press Release Ireland GiveItSocks.com
:. Used Cars Ireland, Car Parts & Car Audio Cars For Sale, Car Parts & Accessories
:. I Have 2 Find It Directory SEF Directory

A little bit easier:

#homepage_bannerarea h1 {
border: #cccc00 0px solid;
color: #ffff00;
font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, serif;
font-size: 300%;
font-weight: normal;
line-height: 80%;
margin-bottom: -0.25em;
}
#homepage_bannerarea h1 a:link, #homepage_bannerarea h1 a:visited {
...
}
#homepage_bannerarea h1 a:hover {
...
}

Sorry forgot to mention you can then remove the id you are using in the <h1> element (and in the <p> if you use the same logic above) - not requied with above.

Links in header elements can give you a slight boost also

__________________
Search Engine Optimisation - Red Cardinal Internet Marketing
Internet Consultant Ireland | Search Engine Optimisation Services
Catering Company Dublin - My sister's handmade canape company!

WHy id? Wouldn't it be better to use classes instead of id's just incase you want to reuse the link styles?

You use id when you want just one h1 tag per page to look different.
Use classes when you have more then 1 per page.

id is also very important if you ever want to make changes to the css and if you ever need to add some sort of Javascript to the h1 tag.