Alt Tags On "VIEW INVENTORY" Button

[TP_Marketing]

I have an E-commerce site that sells events, and tickets.  By default it shows 10 events per page, each event with its own "View Inventory Button" which leads a customer to a list of tickets for that particular event. My question is that by default ea event page has 10 listings all with View Inventory buttons, should I just remove ALL alt tags? For example if it was football game with Detroit lions, and the Detroit lions page shows 10 events by default, should each of my View tickets buttons say EX. "Buy Lions tickets"? I am so confused, i have an understanding of how and what alt tags do, but I am afraid to "over optimize the pages? I am just not sure how many times to have this alt tag visible with keywords in them, as the rest of the page is optimized in my descriptions and I would want to avoid keyword stuffing. Currently all that I can see how is "view tickets" view tickets" 10times as alt tags.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated!!!!

This was a response in the past from someone in the forums

'Depending what language/CMS your website is built on, you will be able to insert a bit of code that dynamically creates a suitable alt tag depending on the product. So whatever page/product template currently instructs the alt tag to be 'buy now', would instead instruct a dynamic name to be generated along the format of 'buy button for"

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Hi there,

First off, you need to know what the ALT tag is for. The ALT Tag is used to describe an image (a:) for the user in case the image does not load in a browser, instead of displaying just a red X, it will also show your ALT tag which tells the user what the image is about or supposed to be. (b:) for search engine spiders to understand what this image is (since search engine spiders are not really good at  understanding images.

Google wants you to create the best user experience, so in your situation I would use the following ALT Tag:

View / See / Browse all "event name" tickets

or

View / See more "event name" tickets

etc...

If your CMS allows for such function to have a different ALT Tag for the same image on different pages, otherwise you can also create an individual button for each event (however that will probably be a nightmare...)

Create something that will make it a better user experience instead of forcing keywords.

Search engine spiders are pretty smart and will figure out, so having an ALT Tag that is related to the content on the page and does not appear to be stuffed with keywords (meaning looks natural) is the best way to go instead of the generic same old ALT tag for all events.

Hope this helps!

[GeorgeAndrews]

What Igor has said is correct.

I do want to point out another reason for ALT tags and that is accessibility. The ALT text of an image is used by screen readers and other software to provide valuable information about images to users. In your case, the valuable information is that the button should be clicked to view inventory for an event.

If the ALT text wasn't populated, there would be nothing to indicate to the user what will happen when the link or button is clicked. I think Igor's suggestion to populate your ALT tags without something like, "Browse all 'even name' tickets", is appropriate.

[TP_Marketing]

Per page I have default up to 10 View Tickets buttons, then the users have an option to clicks view MORE events which will populate the full list which could be 100 events long in some cases. so should i attach at alt tag to every single button? Ex. "Browse all Detroit lions tickets" would be displayed 10times or more? would that be considered keyword stuffing? Or would my best option to just display a few alt tgs on the buttons?

Thanks so much for the help! Much appreciated!

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Can you attach a screenshot of the page or provide a URL?

[TP_Marketing]

Here is a type of example, when the user finds the page via search engine there will be 10 shows/events shown. At that point they have the option to view the entire events or season.  The page is optimized with descriptions, keywords, htags, title etc. I was just concerned if i put "view  xxxx tickets" or Buy xxx tickets 10 times or more it could cause issues.

Thanks

tN9p7.jpg

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Ok I see... I thought by your original question you meant for a specific event page for example if someone types in lakers tickets then they would be redirected to the lakers page which would show the "10 games" and have a button at the bottom of the list that says "view inventory" in that scenario I would recommend what I wrote above...

For this scenario, displaying different events on a single page whether by type or date, I'm not sure if your CMS will allow you to specify different ALT tags for individual buttons. In this case I think you can stick with the generic text "View Tickets" or "View Tickets Button"

Basically in a case where there is a problem of displaying the image the user can still figure out where to click and that a button is meant to be there (same goes for the search engine crawlers)

[TP_Marketing]

Hello,

So keeping pages as is would be fine then?

this is what they look like now

• One Direction Tickets •  • Event • Date • View Tickets • View Tickets • View Tickets • View Tickets • View Tickets •

Etc

I was under the impression that adding some keywords on the buttons would improve my on page.

I do have the ability to add a few buttons with keywords? not sure if that will do anytyhing for my rankings.

Thanks again!

[igor.pinchevskiy]

only if it will benefit and/or improve user experience, otherwise your stuffing keywords and might get penalized by Google... If you had an image of some band performaing, then adding the band's name to ALT tag, that would be ok. but adding some keywords for a view more button is not recommended unless its on a dedicated page like in the example I used for the lakers page...

[TP_Marketing]

Igor,

Would you recommend blocking the alt tag on the buttons all together, or just leave them as is so the say "View Tickets"

Thanks for all of your help!

[igor.pinchevskiy]

I would leave it as is...

[TP_Marketing]

Thank You!