Probably basic, but how to use image Title and Alt Text - and confusing advice from Moz!
-
I've been doing SEO on my business's site for years and have got good results. I've always used image Titles and Alt Text text. Our blog posts are image-intensive, often with 100-200 pictures (not surprising since we're photographers). For any given blog post, I've tended to have a uniform image Title for each image and then a more specialised Alt Text tag giving a description.
A typical image on one of our blog posts would be like this:
Image filename: wedding-photography-at-so-and-so-venue-001.jpg .... 002, 003 etc
Image Title Attribute: Wedding Photography at So-And-So-Venue by Our-Company-Name - this would be the same for every image in the blog post.
Alternative Text: Bride and groom exchanging vows during wedding ceremony at so-and-so-venue - this would be tailed for each image.
So my question is - is this right? The Moz help page for image SEO is actually incorrect in one aspect:
https://moz.com/ugc/10-tips-for-optimizing-your-images-for-search
"Alt text (short for “alternative text”) is used to highlight the identity of an image when you hover over it with your mouse cursor. It also shows as text to all users when there are problems rendering the image."
This is not the case. Hovering over the image in Firefox, Chrome, Edge and Opera ALL display the Image Title, NOT Alt Text.
Thoughts?
-
OK that's good to know. We do inadvertently have a lot of our pics on GI so I was obviously doing something right all these years.
Thanks
-
That Moz help page is kinda half-right For many browsers, in the absence of a title attribute, they will display the alt text on hover instead. But if a title attribute is declared, it will be used, as you note.
Keep in mind - image title attributes are not used as ranking factors for regular search, but they are used as ranking factors for Google Image Search. So still well worth optimising them if your site benefits from image search specifically (as a good photographer's site likely would).
Paul
-
Yes, I've taken that very approach with a re-write this afternoon. if the venue is relevant to the picture then I've left it in, otherise I've removed it from Alt but kept in Title. I've changed up the Title tags too so they're in blocks - first for this place, then this place, then this place etc rather than them all having a global value. It's probably a bit more balance now.
Thanks for the replies. Moz do need to correct that help page.
-
To me that sounds pretty good, providing it is relevant to to the image and provides genuine context it should be fine, I would however, consider - "wedding ceremony at venue" borderline - especially if it is in every image alt on a page. Try change it up a touch - if you cannot tell from the picture that it is at specific venue then maybe not have it in there, say for pictures with a shallow depth of field and the background is not easily identifiable, rings, flowers, tables placings, closeups and a like.
-
Yes, I'm wary of 'keyword stuffing' but I'm not sure what would actually constitute that.
If I've got : " Bride and groom exchanging vows during wedding ceremony at so-and-so-venue "... then that venue name is going to get mentioned in most images - after that is where the image was taken and is completely relevant. Would that be considered stuffing? It's difficult to judge what is and what isn't.
-
I believe what you are doing for your Alt text is great - make it describe each image individually.
As for title I would use it to further describe each individual image rather than duplicate for all in the blog post imagery. This is mainly used for further improving UX on each image.
Alt text is the most important from an crawling/seo perspective as is often used in collaboration with the surrounding text to determine context. Be wary of keyword stuffing in your alt tags.
Hope that helps.
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
-
Text over image
Hello, I am creating an overlay on a image. Is it ok to write on this overlay in html or it is better to have the text not on a image for google and other search engines ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Are ALL duplicate title tags bad??
We’ve had some success recently by reducing the number of duplicate title tags on our website. We have managed to fix all the simple cases but there are a number of stubborn examples that we don’t know how to fix. A lot of the duplicate tags come from the website’s forums. Many questions have been asked multiple times over the years where the user has phrased the question in the same way. This has led to many cases where different forums posts have the same title tag. For example, there are six title tags with the words ‘’need help”! These are being highlighted as duplicates and currently we have several thousand of these. Would this be a problem? I’d be tempted to say that we should leave them as they don’t seem unnatural to me. One solution other solution we are considering is to append the forum name to the question to any post after the original, falling back to appending the date if that doesn’t distinguish it. Do people think that this is a good solution to implement or would it be better to leave these duplicate title tags as they are? Any help would be appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
Why does Google show Titles different than the coded titles?
Hi, I've noticed that on many pages Google shows on the SERPS titles that he chose for me and not necessarily the ones coded in the Title tag (usually small difference like adding suffix etc.). Why is that? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
WordPress redesign: using posts as pages?
Starting a redesign for an attorney who is currently using WordPress with an old framework that is no longer being supported, so I'm going to install a new WP and start from scratch. The site consists of about 30 static pages (practice areas, attorney profiles, etc.) and they write about 5 blog posts per month. I've always differentiated between posts and pages for WP sites I've done in the past, but this time around I thought it might be more clean (less files, and easier for their webmaster to make routine edits) if I just brought over the static pages as posts. However, the recent webinar on the Yoast SEO plugin mentioned using the month/day in the permalink structure for posts to avoid duplicate content issues. That would go against how I was thinking of setting it up, because I would have just generated the URL off the page title and make a separate category for "pages". Just wondering if anyone's used posts as pages before. While this seems like it would make things easier for the webmaster, I'm not sure it maximizes potential for SEO. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | c2g0 -
Anchor text
my website hit by penguin update on april; i check my anchor text and found that i had 1790 anchor links for " air conditioning nyc" i erase them almost a month ago but it still shows on the website report. how long it take seomoz see the changes and what about google. if someone have any idea how can i bring my site back to the top pages. thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eoberlender0 -
Domain advice needed, please
Could i get a little domain advice please. Launching a new website project and want to put it on a domain we already own (both domains are in the same niche as the larger project). The new project will be aimed at the UK market. The choice is: .co.uk we own with a good name, however it's Domain Authority rank is 7 and it's only about 8 months old. .com domain which is 6 years old, has a Domain Authority rank of 33 but is not as good a domain name. The Competitive Link Analysis tells me that the rivals for the keywords we would be targeting are between 24 and 42. Which domain would people go with? All things equal it would be a fair guess that the older, higher Domain Authority ranked .com will require less work to rank in the engines, however it's not as good brand wise. Thanks Carl
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Should I use the main keyword in the title tag for the site on all category pages?
I am pretty excited about changing all my title tags (for the most important 7 pages) since I have seen my rankings jump up in the SERP just by adding the main keyword for my website in the title tag. To make it easier I will explain my business. Simply, I run an online jewelry shop, so basically the keywords I want to use is "Jewelry online" and for the main categories "Necklace", "Rings" and "Bracelets". What I am unsure about is whether to use all the keywords in the main pages title tag or should I just use the main keyword "Jewelry online". I don’t want to create competition between my own pages of course. Jewelry Online - Trendy Fashion Jewelry | Homepage Or Jewelry Online - Necklace, Rings, Bracelets | Homepage And the same goes for the main categories, should I include "jewelry online" or not, like: Bracelets - Fashion Jewelry Online | Homepage Or Bracelets - Trendy_ Bangles_ and Arm Cuffs | Homepage Any suggestions what is the best practice for the title tag on main page and the main categories? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ikomorin0 -
Should I Use City Name in URL?
Having a website designed for a car dealership and deciding what attributes to use in the URL. Should I include the city name in the URL? Or does that help for SEO purposes? Other ideas of what to research or try are appreciated too. Thanks 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kylesuss0