Question

Is it possible to have anchor links no text inside that has a background image and fixed dimensions and still be good for SEO?

Example CSS:

a{display:block;width:50px;height:20px;background-image:url('images/background.jpg');background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:0 0;}

a:hover img{background-position:0 -20px;}

Example HTML:
<a href="#"></a>

Answer 1

If the image has text in it or you simply want to add its description, one thing you can do to help SEO and accessibility is to give the anchor a title and content with a large negative text-indent, like adding this to your a CSS:

display:block;
text-indent:-9999em;

…with the following HTML:

<a href="#" title="IMAGE TEXT">IMAGE TEXT</a>