Images are used to convey important text-based content that you want your visitors to read in an easier and effective manner. And, we know that images optimization also play a highly important role in achieving better search engine rankings. Webmaster are under the impression about the use of Alt text and Title text in tag.
In Google’s webmaster guidelines, they advise the use of alternative text for the images on your web site. Let’s understand difference between image alt text and image title text and why should we need to include alt attribute in images.
What is Alt Text ?
Alt text, simply defined as alternative information. It describe what image is all about . If we disable images in a web browser, then we will see the alternate text associated with an image same as shown below
Importance of Image alt text
Search engine bots cannot read image content the way we can. The bots can read text content and to help bots understand we should use alt attributes in our <img> tags. In more simple words, alt attribute/alt text helps search engine to understand what’s going on in the images.
We can associate targeted keywords with images to get traffic, better indexing and rankings in search engines such as Google image search . If we ignore alt text the image will be displayed as shown below
This makes difficult for search engine to understand what an image is about. I hope you get the notion of the importance of Alt text . So, don’t ignore alt text in images as these are responsible for driving valuable traffic from Google Image search.
Maximum Number of Keywords Allowed
The exact answer to this question is not specified in any search engine guidelines. But,based on the discussion in Google webmaster help, I come to know that we should use alt text that concisely identify the images. And, we must avoid Keyword stuffing.
The longer you make the alt text the more "diluted" it becomes, greater the risk of it appearing a spam.
The alt text should also be specific to the image – don’t use the same alt text repeatedly with different images especially images on the same page (For example- This photo was taken by Joe Blogs and is protected by worldwide copyright. If you wish to buy this photo please contact ….)
Still confused ? Watch Matt Cutts response on how best to optimize your site for Google image search .
What is Title Text ?
On the other hand, Title text provide extra or additional information about the image for which it is used. You can see Title text pops up when you move your mouse cursor on the image in a browse as shown below.
Title text helps visitors of your website to understand that what an image on a webpage is showing. *Quick Tip – write the title text simple and catchy.
Adding Title and Alt attribute to an Image tag
Now, you know the need of Alt and Title text and may want to add these text with with images on your webpage. Adding these attributes to an images is very simple task, just add keywords “alt” and “title” with the relevant information to the <img> tag ( see the <img> tag below)
<img src =”Image Location” alt =” enter alt text here ” title=” enter title text here"/>
Additional Tips on Image Optimization
- » Never use image as the replacement of the important text on your webpage.
- » Use descriptive for the file names . Avoid uploading images with names that don’t mean anything. For example, name a photo of Sony DVD as sony-dvd.png, instead of generic and meaningless name such as img11001.png or asdf.png.
- » Resizing the image and Optimizing the size ( converting jpeg to png, gif to png etc ) of the image to reduce the loading time of a webpage.
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