February 22

Do You Alt-Text Your Images?

0  comments

There are several on-page factors that you can adjust to make your website more search engine friendly.  One factor that is really easy to do, but a lot of website owners neglect is to make sure their photos include alt-text tags.

Why is this?

Google’s spiders crawl the web-and your websites regularly.  As they are crawling, they pick up information about what the site is about, if there’s any new content available, etc.  Well, photos that are published on the website are just that, photos.  The spiders really cannot translate those photos without some type of text description.  If no description is available, then you will lose an opportunity to add more descriptive information about your website, or more specifically, that particular webpage.  By the way, Google places high value on the alt-text tags, so it only makes sense to add these to your photos.

You want to supply as much information as you can, right?

The trick with alt-text is to give as much information as possible, while using the fewest amount of words.  You do not want to “keyword stuff” the alt-text field, as this is something Google does not like. You can still be descriptive with a few words.  Be sure to include the keywords in that description.

Images that contain alt-text will also offer another avenue for the user to access your site.

Artisan Crafted Lighting

Let’s say you have a website where you blog about high-end lighting for the home.  Here is a blog post I wrote for Artisan Crafted Lighting.  It is sitting on the first page of google for artisan crafted designer chandeliers.  It is the third listing in the search results.

artisan crafted designer chandeliers

 

 

 

 

If you have the alt-text assigned to the photos, you will also see the image under the Image tab on Google search.

artisancraftedimage

 

 

 

 

 

 

TheJazzWorld.Com

Your YouTube videos can also rank in the image section in the search results.  Let’s take a look at my other site, thejazzworld.com.  If you perform a Google search for contemporary jazz vocalists, my main site, and my youtube video are ranking on the first page for that term.

contemporary jazz vocalists

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, if you switch over to the image tab, you will see the thumbnail that I attached to the video is included in the search results.

contemporary jazz vocalists

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are trying to put your site in the best position to be found in search, utilizing the alt-text is one of the ways to increase your chances of being found.

So, is creating an alt-tag difficult to do?

Creating an alt-tag is a simple process if you are using WordPress as your CMS, no coding required.  When you upload the image to WordPress, you will see an area where you can establish your alt-text information.  You can go in there at any time and make changes if you feel that a different description would be necessary.

alt-text example

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is especially important for photographers.  If you are a photographer and have web pages with several photos, you can fill in the alt-text label so the Google spiders can tell what the page is about.  I have seen many photographer sites with photos, but not a lot of text.  How about best glamour photographer in Kansas City, or Toledo modeling photographer.

All you DJ’s out there like to post party images on your site to show how you are killing the party, right?

You can put best wedding DJ in Dallas in the alt-text, if you are displaying a wedding photo, or affordable sweet 16 DJ in Phoenix.  You would obviously need to do some keyword research to find the best phrases to use.

You would be doing yourself a disservice if all of the alt-text fields are blank.  You are losing an opportunity to have your photos in the image search results.

If you are including photos on your web pages, be sure you are adding the alt-text.  Remember, this does two things:

  • Allow the Google spiders to read the image meaning
  • Allow your images to be searched

Do You Alt-Text Your Images?  If you aren’t, you are missing a factor that Google uses to rank websites.

Hit me up if you have any questions about this.

Here is one question for you…..Is Your Media Kool?


Tags


You may also like

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

Subscribe to our newsletter now!