Alt tags are an essential part of web design. An Alt tag is the tool that gives your images context for search engines, making it an excellent source of information for returning visitors who use a screen reader to explore your website. Images don’t appear in search engine listings, so the Alt tag is the unseen component that gives your page the flavor and depth that text alone cannot.
Alt Tags is a simple taalltechtime.com/g that everyone should use; unfortunately, not many people do. Alt tags are a handy tool for people who can’t see images, such as those with visual impairments and who like to use screen readers on the web. When you use an image as part of your content (either as an illustration or as decoration), you should be using an Alt tag to describe what the image is about.
Why are Alt Tags important?
ALT tags, or alternative text, are a vital component of on-page SEO. These tags help search engines understand what your page is about, and they can help users using screen readers navigate your website.
The ALT tag helps search engines:
* Understand the page
* Understand the page content
* Understand the page’s importance
* Understand the page’s purpose
* Understand the page’s audience
* Understand the page’s relevance
* Understand the page’s weight
* Understand the page’s relative importance
* Understand the page’s context
Alt tags are more than just an afterthought, and their value extends far beyond just search engine optimization. They are a crucial component of your overall content marketing strategy. Alt tags are your brand’s version of metadata.
They don’t just label images, they describe them, and they are essential for telling search engines exactly what your image is for. That description then ties into the image’s file name, which is essentially a link, which makes the image a valuable part of your overall content. Alt tags can also help search engine crawlers distinguish between different images on your page. For example, if you have an image that appears on every page of your site, you want a descriptive alt tag that tells search engines it is on every page, not a duplicate image.
How to optimize your Alt tags?
Alt tags should describe what the image is about rather than the image itself. For example, on the ‘code’ page, the photo of the green flower is replaced by the alt text “green flower.” The text “green flower” doesn’t describe the image itself, but it helps SERPs understand what the picture is all about. Here’s how to make sure your alt tags are providing as much value as possible:
1. Choose your keywords carefully. What keywords related to the search term do you want to use in your alt tags?
2. Use alt tags per image. Alt tags should come after the image’s title. Each image should have its alt tag.
3. Use descriptive alt tags. Don’t use “picture” or “image” or “photo.” Use keywords to describe what you’re showing in the image.
4. Don’t overuse alt tags. You don’t want to stuff your alt tags with so many keywords that search engines ignore your descriptions, but you don’t want to use too few that search engines can’t understand what they’re describing.
5. Don’t add alt tags to images that don’t exist. If you add alt tags to images you didn’t take, you’re only hurting your SEO.
6. Don’t add alt tags to images that have no text. Adding alt tags to images with no text is deceptive and can hurt your SEO and credibility.
7. Use alt tags for images that aren’t navigable. Images that can’t be navigated, such as screenshots, should have no alt tags.
8. Edit alt tags every time you add or update content on your site
Examples of Good and Bad Alt tags
Alt tags should describe the image — what your images show, not what they are. For example, if you’re using an image of a sunset, your ALT text could be “Sunset.”
Here’s another example, if your image is a line drawing, you might add the alt text “Line drawing of [person].” If your image is a photo of someone, you might add the alt text “[Person].”
Poor ALT tags can cause problems with your SEO. Poor ALT tags can deter search engines and users alike from reading your blog posts. Also, if search engines can’t understand your images, they can’t index and rank your content.
If the image is of a product — say, a coffee mug — it should look something like “The mug,” not “Product mug.”
So, how do you avoid this pitfall? First, use keywords in your alt tags. Use relevant keywords that make sense to your audience. Second, keep the alt tags short. Alt tags of fewer than 100 characters perform better than those longer than 100. Finally, be sure to use image descriptions, too.
Why do Alt tags matter?
The answer is quite simple: because they help search engines understand the web page’s content. When you write content for your web pages, you should focus on writing good content and writing good ALT tags.
For example, let’s say you wanted to see pictures of puppies. You might type “puppies” into Google, and the top result for kittens might not seem relevant because you’re looking for puppies. But if you put “puppies” into Google’s image search (right-click an image, and click “Search Google for Image”), Google will process and match your keywords with images.
In this case, the top result for “puppies” is a picture of puppies, even though you typed “kittens” into the engine.
Why is this? Because Google indexes the ALT tags of images. The ALT tag for this picture reads “Kittens :)” (because the “:)” is styled like quotation marks. Google knows you want pictures of puppies, so it shows you the top results for “puppies.” But if you don’t put “puppies” into your image search, Google won’t do any work. It won’t even see the ALT tag. So if you don’t have ALT tags, you’re missing out on a lot of traffic.
Conclusion
ALT tags are the little characters that come after the <IMG> tag. They’re necessary if you want your images to show up in Google image searches. They also give Google and other search engines extra information they can use to understand and index your images.
In a 2015 study, researchers found that 78% of readers said ALT tags are “very useful” or “useful” in helping them understand the content of an image. In addition, if images fail to load, your ALT tags will display, allowing your readers to see your content.