Best practice SEO for images added via WP
-
<label class="setting" data-setting="title">Hi</label>
When adding an image to a post or page using wordpress I have complete 4 fields:
Title
Caption
Alt Text
DescriptionIf the image is of an orange campervan in Cornwall, UK then how best would I complete these fields? Can Title and Alt be the same and can Caption and description be the same?
Thank you for this!
James
-
It doesn't really matter that much if you use the alt text, and title well to describe the image. However, I always recommend (and do it myself) renaming the image to match the title, in your case something like orange-campervan-cornwall-uk.jpg.
Always use dashed to separate words, not underscores
-
One other thing if you have time - what should the image be called in the file it's uploaded from? Would it be 'orange campervan cornwall uk'? Thanks
-
Thank you - it makes sense now!
-
Thanks for a fast and detailed response!
-
Hi James,
Each field is actually intended for something different:
- Title: should be what is the image. In this case: orange campervan
- Caption: Is what shows up under the image describing it to users visiting the page. In this case: orange campervan in cornwall, UK blah blah.
- Alt Text: Should be an image description that appears when the browser can't (for some reason) display the image. In this case can be either "orange campervan", "Image of orange campervan" or whatever you think describes best the image when somebody can't see it.
- Description: Is just that, a short, brief description of the image contents.
Hope that helps.
-
First, I would focus on making the alt tag accessible. If the image didn't load, or a user happened to be visually impaired, could they tell what should be in the images place? So alt="orange campervan in cornwall uk", but only if the context of Cornwall UK is important. Don't write a book, if the image is that of a green apple - then alt="green apple".
Here's more on alt text. *Note, don't use images for a nav, but definitely alt -exactly- if you don't have a choice.
The purpose of a caption is editorial. It should be a little less terse than your alt text. If you're writing about traveling through Cornwall in your campervan something like; "What an adventure I had when driving my orange campervan through Cornwall UK". If you're writing about your trip through Cornwall UK in your orange campervan - then you've successfully given the lizard brain a reason to possibly stick around and read.
The description part really depends on if your theme supports it. More on that here. An example would be; "I really liked this shot of my orange camper van. The sunsets in Cornwall UK are amazing!" (If there's a sunset.) You're really just providing commentary here.
The title is closer in spirit to the alt text. It may also include a CTA. "Click here for more adventures"
But the overall goal should be aimed at being descriptive where appropriate and succinct where necessary. Doing so improves accessibility. If you're remotely talking about the topic, the keywords tend to fall into place.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why is my image Alt Text showing up under my URL and title on the Google results page?
I just realized this happened 😞 I optimized this page over a week ago. I changed out the old image on the page, along with the Alt Text. Now I see this when I do a search for it. No Beuno. Can some one please tell me how I get rid of the alt text in the result. many many thanks in advance. http://thumannagency.com/business-insurance/contractors-insurance Contractors Liability, Work Comp Insurance in Dallas, Texas ... <cite class="_Rm">thumannagency.com/business-insurance/contractors-insurance</cite>Your page is not mobile-friendly.Dallas, Texas Contractors Insurance. Contractors Insurance Quote. General Contractor working on a roof in Texas. Thumann Agency specializes in providing ...
Image & Video Optimization | | MissThumann0 -
How long should the Image Alt Text be for SEO?
When it comes to creating the alternate text for images, what is the character length that I need stay under to rank well?
Image & Video Optimization | | Ytellsocial0 -
Meta Tags for Images in Multiple Galleries
For a while now we've had an outside SEO consultant as well as having me in-house doing a variety of work. One of the things our consultant would do was writing up optimized alt & title tags for the image galleries on our ecommerce sites. Recently what came up was what to do when a image appears in multiple galleries (e.g. an image of a bedroom could appear in both the bedrooms gallery & the accent wall gallery). We're not sure whether it would be best practices to use the same exact alt & title tags for an image in all the galleries it appears in or whether that would be too much duplication and each gallery should have different tags despite being the same image. None of it is being done in a deceptive manner, we're just been tailoring how we explain the image based on the specific gallery, landing page, etc. Our consultant is saying that an image should always have the same tags across the entirety of the site but I'm more of the mind that varying them by specific page would help images more readily rank for multiple relevant terms. Any advice?
Image & Video Optimization | | MikeRoberts0 -
CDN image links passing SEO benefit?
We used a CDN to host all of the images on our site, and the paths are such:
Image & Video Optimization | | PixelKicks
http://cdn.onedirection.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/harry-styles-tongue5.jpg Frequently we get a lot of other websites using our images, which we're fine with, but I would like to know if we get any SEO value from these image links? Interestingly they do appear in the "Just Discovered" section of OSE. Cheers, Chris.0 -
Google images indexing on no-index html page?
Hi, I wonder if a image can get indexed, included in google images if it is located on a html page with a no-follow tag? Thanks for your help.
Image & Video Optimization | | wildnis0 -
Best way to host video?
Hi, We are planning to host videos on our site for the first time. It looks like YouTube is a bit too over focused on ads these days for commercial use, can anyone recommend any better video hosting services? I also realize that hosting somewhere like YouTube has little SEO benefit, am I better off hosting them on our site if possible? Please share your experiences with the various services and methods of hosting. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Maximise1 -
Dynamic image serving SEO
We often use images from a dynamic image server, to cater for image asset management, multiple sizes etc. Similar to Adobe's Scene7, although that came out after we chose our product. So widgets.com may have all its images with a URL like myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90, instead of widgets.com/images/productname.jpg. A potential client wants to capitalise on traffic from Google image search. We could build an image sitemap, listing the images on each page. What should we place in the image:loc field? The code: myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90 Apparently we have to verify the hosting site in Webmaster Tools, but I can't see where. I have a single Webmaster Tools account, where most of our sites are defined. Would I have to verify it for each site using the dynamic imaging program? Love to hear from anyone with solutions for getting images indexed when they are hosted at third-party dynamic imaging programs.
Image & Video Optimization | | ozgeekmum0 -
Canadian Local SEO gurus: What are the best citation sources?
I have been trying to gain some position in our local O-pack results and have used whitespark to hunt for citations and aquire as many as possible, but even after 4-5 months google has still not detected many of the citations we have added. What are you favourite citation sources? which ones really help? i.e. what are some quality canadian citation sources?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0