If you’re looking to improve the SEO and rankings for your website, one of the simple practices you can adopt is to pay attention to your image SEO and image Alt Tags.
What Are Image Alt Tags?
In SEO terms, Alt Tags, sometimes called Alt Attributes or Alternative Text, are word-based descriptions of an image. Alt tags’ primary purpose was to make websites more accessible for Screen Readers. By attributing some descriptive words to an image, a Screen Reader is able to describe the image for any visually impaired users.
The careful use of Image Alt Tags is still a Best Practice recommendation for those who want to provide an accessible online experience to their website users.
However, the use of Image Alt Tags evolved over time and has come to be a part of effective Search Engine Optimisation. The alt attribute not only enhances the user experience for visually impaired visitors but also improves search engine understanding of image content, potentially benefiting page rankings.
What are They Used For in Screen Readers?
The primary use of Image Alt Tags is for Screen Readers, to facilitate an audible description for those who have difficulty seeing webpage images. Using descriptive alt text is crucial for web accessibility and SEO, as it ensures that visually impaired users receive accurate and specific descriptions of images, creating a clear mental image while integrating relevant keywords.
A secondary use of Image Alt Tags is to provide a text-based description of images so that search engines can ascertain what the image depicts, which provides information about the site and its topics.
In short, Image Alt Tags are used as a way of describing a visual image using words that can be read aloud (by Screen Readers), or used to provide text-based information about a website (for Search Engines).
Why Can They Be Useful for Image SEO?
Image Alt Tags can be useful for SEO because they provide search engines with key information about a website, which can help to improve rankings. Optimising image alt tags can also improve visibility in Google Images and image search results.
Paying attention to Image Alt Tags is an aspect of On-Page Optimisation. This is one of the easiest types of SEO for any website owner to address in order to see quick wins and improvements. However, be cautious of keyword stuffing in alt text, as it can diminish quality and reduce the benefit from the search engines.
Assuming that your images are relevant to your business objectives and preferred search terms, giving some thought to the use of Image Alt Tags can help your website contain more relevant keywords.
Image Alt Tags also reveal nuances and specific details about your site that can also help search engines learn more about what the site may be relevant to rank for.
For example, if your website is selling clothes, by describing the images used on the site (using Image Alt Tags), the search engines get a clear signal of the types of clothes, as well as specific details such as colours, styles, categories, and features etc… While these keywords may be included as text throughout the site, the use of relevant Image Alt Tags adds another layer of information that search engines can use and incorporate into an overall assessment of the site as a whole.
All this extra information can translate into improved ranking positions as well as more relevant ranking results, i.e. those that connect your website with the right people – the ones who are searching for your products or services online.
How to Use Image Alt Tags for SEO
Writing alt text for images is crucial for both SEO and accessibility. Optimising image alt text can significantly enhance visibility in search results. Writing image alt text that is both informative and optimised for search engines is essential. Using an empty alt attribute for purely decorative images helps screen readers ignore them, improving accessibility. Proper formatting for alt text associated with an image file is important to avoid assistive technologies reading the image file name. Well-written alt text helps search engines understand the relevance of the image to the overall content of the web page.
There are three ways to specify or edit Image Alt Tags for the images on your website.
Edit Image Alt Tags In Media Library
Whichever platform you’re using, you probably have a Media Library that houses all the images and other media (videos, audios, pdfs etc) that you use on your site.
To edit the Image Alt Tag for a specific image, you can select the image in the Media Library and navigate to the image settings. There you’ll usually find a field that you can edit – it might be labelled Alt Text or Alternative Text or Image Attribute. In this field, you can choose the words you want to use to describe the image. Ideally, use language that would make sense if the description was read aloud using a Screen Reader. For SEO benefits, you can also include keywords that reflect the image content and make sense within your business topic or themes.
Edit Image Alt Tags On Specific Pages
Editing the Image Alt Tags in the Media Library is useful for using the image and its alt tag settings throughout the site, but there may be times when you’d prefer to tweak the wording of the description for a specific page. In this instance, you can edit the Image Alt Tag to more closely match the On-Page Optimisation goals for that page, as long as it would still make sense to a Screen Reader and provide a good experience for any visually impaired users. Writing alt text that is both accurate and descriptive is crucial for accessibility and SEO. Most modern website builders will have a facility for editing the Alt Tags or Alternative Text for a specific image while you are designing the page, either in the front-end or the back end. Again, you’ll need to navigate to the Image Settings and look for the field that allows you to write image alt text or similar.
Edit Image Alt Tags Within The Page Code
If you have advanced coding skills and are familiar with the HTML of your website, it’s also possible to edit the Image Alt Tags directly in the page’s source code. One of the easiest ways to do this is to first locate the image reference in the code, using a Browser Inspector tool or the Search function, then you can edit the Alt Tags directly. If there is an existing Alt Tag, you can edit it to include the appropriate description and relevant keywords. Alternatively, if the image has no Alt Tags you can add a new description with the code: alt=”new image description”, using the relevant keywords and phrases that best represent the image.
When you write alt text, it is crucial to ensure that it accurately describes the image file and includes relevant keywords. Properly formatted alt text not only enhances website accessibility for visually impaired users but also improves SEO by making your content more understandable to search engines. Neglecting the alt attribute can lead to assistive technologies reading the image file name instead of the intended description, which can be confusing for users.
The use of Image Alt Tags is a simple way to improve both the User Experience of your website and its position within the Search Engines. Since User Experience is also a key factor in successful SEO, ensuring your site is accessible for all users is not only a best practice for your online audience, it can be beneficial for your site’s online success as well.
By giving careful thought to the words and phrases you use in your image descriptions, and when appropriate aligning these with your business keywords and SEO goals, you can benefit from the improved optimisation that can translate to higher-ranking positions and more traffic to your website.