Alt tag best practices for a mutli gallery site with hundreds of images

[Tetruss]

I have neglected to add alt tags to one of my sites, and am ready to tackle the project. I want to make sure I do not do something that will have a negative impact on rankings....and I have not been able to find info that fits my situation.

The pics are all about a product I make and sell through the site. I have a free gallery section that has about 10 galleries with about 20 pics each. Each gallery page has a different model and/or context of how the product. might be used. These are not sales pages directly just thumbnail galleries linked to larger images for the viewers enjoyment.

I have 10 or so keyword phrases that would be good to use, with the intent to start getting listed in google images and other rank enhancements.

Can I choose one keyword phrase as my alt tag choice  for a whole gallery and give each individual large pic in the gallery that same alt tag, And use a different phrase for the next gallery's pics etc.?

Or is that thought of as stuffing, and I would have to come up with a different keyword phrase for each pic?

I hope that makes sense.

Thanks

Galen

[Tetruss]

Hi Thanks for the info.

Is it correct then to assume, acknowledging all the cautions given, that it would be most advantageous to just target one pic per gallery to optimize, instead of trying to optimize each pic in each gallery, and spread my different key word phrase descriptions among one picture per each gallery?

THanks

Galen

[MoosaHemani]

My suggestion would be to go with the basic idea of what Image Alt tags are and go with it and you will find the right path yourself. In my personal opinion Alt tag images are use to describe and hint search engine about what the image is all about so if your keyword justify an image go with it but if not then try to avoid that... using similar image alt tag on all images will take you to the red zone of Google and they might consider you a spammer for adding keyword stuffing within the content.

Try not to get in to the red area of Google and play safe!

Hope this helps!

[FedeEinhorn]

Alt tags are intended for the purpose of describing the image, while you can include keywords in them, if you use all the same keywords, while not actually describing the images, it will be seen as stuffing, I strongly suggest not to do that. Instead focus on writing a real image description and try to put the keyword in them, not forcing the keywords neither. If the picture can include a keyword in the alt tag great, but if not, just don't.

Hope that helps!