i need your opinions

If you go to my site: http://www.toptiertemplates.com and click on a link such as "web design templates" on the left side, you'll notice that the page loads in a frame. The entire page does not reload. My only problem is, and this is where SEO comes into play, is that my index page consists only of the images and links and javascript that calls up the tex in the frame. My biggest concern is that the actual index page itself does not contain any body text. Willl this hurt my search engine positioning if I do not have a body of text or will optimizing the index page as it is (optimize the header, alt tags, etc...) be enough?

Unfortunately, the way your page is laid out will never help your search engine positioniong. The content seem to load within a javascript defined cell, rather than using full framesets. You should at least use image alt tags, but they will not count as much as visible body text.

The good news is that all this won't really affect your google ranking. Only the inbound links, your metatags and overall page size matter.

simple and valid html does help the rankings in search engines.