One useful SEO practice that some people may forget about is optimizing the alt tags for all of the images on your website. It is important to make sure all of the images on your site and posts have the alt tag (which is a common abbreviation for alt attribute or alt text) filled out with relevant keywords and descriptions- the key here is relevant.
If you use WordPress, it’s pretty simple to add or change the alt tags. Upon uploading if you look to the right they will give you an option to add the alt text.
If you are using you classic HTML site or something other than WordPress the code will look like this:
<img src="image.jpg" alt="image description" title="image tooltip"/> |
The Title vs. Alt Text
The alt tag or alt text is a pretty simple concept when it comes to images, it describes (through text) what the image is and what its purpose is on the site. The main use is for visually impaired users. Screen readers will use this description to explain what the image is to a blind or visually impaired user, but it also adds some SEO value as well.
Having your alt tags all sorted out and correctly utilized is great for SEO because it strengthens the readability of your site for crawlers. It lets google and other search engines ‘read’ the image in a sense and realize it’s relevant to what’s on the page. If you have trouble creating a relevant alt text tag for your image you might have to ask yourself the question if the picture is necessary or relevant to the content you have written for the page.
The Title tag is basically what it states, a title for the image. Here you are going to want to follow the same rules you would when writing a title for a blog or content page. Keep it short, sweet and relevant to what the content is.
If you haven’t taken the time to go through all of the images on site and optimize the alt title and alt text tags then there’s never been a better time to do it, it will help your SEO efforts immensely .