Over the last few months I have performed a number of architecture reviews on image heavy sites and shopping platforms. A trend that I seem to be coming across is people not knowing the difference between the supposed contents of the image alt and title tags – either not entering any contents because they are unsure, or adding contents without taking into account what they are there for.
It’s now been over 2 years since Google announced they use the image alt attribute contents to ascertain what an image is and related to. This, in addition to Google’s recently granted reasonable surfer patent suggesting that more power and value is passed via links that are more likely to be clicked upon i.e. banners and images, shows it is incredibly important to make sure we are correctly optimising the images we have on our own sites.
There is a distinct difference between the supposed contents of the image alt and the image title tags:
Image Alt Tags
Alt text is meant to be an “alternative information source” for those people who have chosen to disable images in their browsers and those user agents that are simply unable to “visualise” the images.
It should be used to describe what the image is about and get those visitors interested to see it.
Image Title Tags
The image title should provide additional information and follow the rules of the regular title: being relevant, short, catchy and concise (a best practice title ‘offers advisory information about the element for which it is set’).
How do we optimise our images?
Using the description of both tags means it is quite easy for us to discuss how we can optimised them correctly:
- Both tags are meant for the end user even though alt text seems more important for crawlers.
- For the ‘Alt tag’ contents we must provide explicit information on an image to encourage users to view them and to pass on as much information to search as possible.
- You should include your keywords within both tags but keep them different.
- Whilst adding your keywords to the content avoid keyword stuffing. Even though it’s Alt and Title text, it is still keyword stuffing.
- Keep both relevant.