Image ALT Attribute

[OTSEO]

Hi,

Got a message from the On-Page Optimizer to update the ALT Attribute in an image. Does that mean just rename the image and re-upload it on to the site?

Thanks!

[rasmusbang]

Hi,

No it means that in your HTML-tag you should have an ALT attribute.

Like so:

-Rasmus

[DougRoberts]

The ALT attribute is part of the HTML code used to include the image on your page. It should look something like this:

The ALT attribute is displayed when the browser can't display your image (and used by screen readers).

The reason this is important for SEO is that it can help provide search engines with a clue as to what the image is about (and if you can use keywords that you're tying to get your page to rank for it should also help overall page relevancy). The text surrounding the image will also be used by search engines to provide more information for what the image is about.

w3c page on the IMG html tag

Hope this helps.

[OTSEO]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the detailed replies. On my CMS I can't really edit the image. Is it possible to edit the image before I upload it? That way the information I'm trying to include will be added.

Thanks!

[DougRoberts]

When you upload your image does the CMS not ask for a test description of the image? What CMS is it?

You can't do anything to the image files itself in order to do this. You could rename the image so that it has a meaningful filename which may help, but it still won't provide an ALT atribute.

[heatherrobinson]

Could you tell us what CMS you're using and perhaps your site URL so we can take a look at the code.

The ALT attribute has to be added into the HTML and cannot to added to an image before upload, but there should be an option in your CMS to add this. If there isn't, you need a new CMS!

[TampaSEO]

Just to add to this:

Adding an ALT attribute (alternative text) to all of your images is a usability best practice and can also help with your SEO efforts.

Here's a (fairly old) video from Matt Cutts, head of Google's web spam team, that highlights the importance of not ignoring ALT attributes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NbuDpB_BTc

And here's an article from Rand Fishkin that briefly touches on the topic:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Specifically:

"Alt Attribute - Surprisingly, the alt attribute, long thought to carry little SEO weight, was shown to have quite a robust correlation with high rankings in our studies. Thus, we strongly advise the use of a graphic image/photo/illustration on important keyword-targeted pages with the term/phrase employed in the alt attribute of the _img _tag."

[OTSEO]

Hi Heather,

Thanks for the reply. The site uses FCK Editor + Smarty + PHP. It's super easy to use when you are uploading content, but I think it might be very poorly set up for SEO.

On the FCK Editor there is a SOURCE button that shows the HTML. I'm not sure, but that MAY be the only place to put in the meta descriptions and ALT Attributes.

It's unfortunately very confusing!