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
-
Questions about optimization for Google Images
Hello all, I've got a few quick questions about optimization for Google Image search. Would be great if someone could help me out with these. Is it possible to track and seperate visitors that reach my website through the images presented in the SERP's? Should we avoid changing high ranking pictures on important keywords? If we need to change the pictures what would the best strategy be? Replace the original filename and alt tag of the picture? Keep the orignal pictures but change the location of the pictures to a new post on our website? Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | buiserik0 -
PDFs and SEO
Hello Fellow Mozers! Just curious... can or does Google read PDFs linked on sites? I always assumed they would be "read" much like images are...that is, the bots can't "see" the image they just read the link and title tag. I am doing SEO for a site that has many PDF forms and it just occurred to me that I have no idea about the relationship between PDFs and SEO Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Image & Video Optimization | | adamxj20 -
Adding logo to graphics/memes/etc?
Do you all think it is best to add your logo/brand (in some small way) to graphics/meme/ etc that you create? I understand that the most important part about creating said content is that it is of high quality and usefulness to our audience, however, after something of that caliber has been created, have any of you noticed any difference by adding or not adding your logo/brand? Any suggestions, stories, resources, etc are always appreciate. Thanks in advance for your time and input, Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
LOCAL SEO: Franchise --> One storefront. Multiple territory. Multiple listings?
An interesting problem came our way, and I'd love your help in solving it. An individual I'm chatting with owns and manages a number of territories of a service-based Franchise business around Eastern Iowa.**His territory covers multiple cities and zips. He services all of those places, but does not have a physical presence in all. There is one company office. But he has local numbers for each territory.**The corporate franchise's website is dynamic. It shows the 'local' number and information based on the visitor's location. Basically, little microsites for each franchise territory.Three years ago he set up individual Google Places pages for each territory, using a PO box address and the local phone numbers. The Google listings are set up not to display an address. The kick is -- those addresses are now expired. Those Google Local listings still exist, and drive considerable traffic in each target city. As you can imagine, this also causes havoc on his other citations. There are scattered (YP, Yahoo, Yelp, etc) listings for each address. Their name in GetListed brings up all five different addresses, each with a number of web properties already claimed.Now that I've offered to help, I need to determine the best way to move forward. Suspend the verified listings with hidden addresses and move to a single listing for the office location? We could add all of the zips in manually, but it would cover a very wide range, and could lose its rank in local SERPs. Even with a well-optimized description. And the local numbers would likely not show up. Keep the listings. Don't touch them at all. The owner is looking to maintain the look and feel of a local business in each of his territories. That is difficult to do with a single listing. Assuming we decide not to touch the active listings (option 2), what will we do for other listings? Do we claim a local Yahoo listing for each location? Just for the corporate office? Would love to hear how others have attacked the multi-territory franchise problem, or would in this case.Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | SocialJosh0 -
Blocking Google From Accessing Our Images - SEO Impact
We recently discovered that we were blocking Google from crawling our cdn, cdn.yournextshoes.com, where all our images are hosted. Unfortunately this went on for several months, and I wonder if this could explain our horrible SEO performance. Basically, I would like to know if this has impacted just our performance in Google Images (obviously our images have not been picked up by Google Images), or if our regular SEO has been impacted as well.Right now we're just receiving around 13% of our traffic from search, so we're trying to find out why Google does not like us.
Image & Video Optimization | | Jantaro0 -
Doing SEO for multiple clients, who should make the content?
I realize that since content marketing is (or can be) a part of SEO, then it would logically follow that it's up to whoever is doing the SEO to create the content*. And when it's 1 person or a small group of people that work for 1 company, doing its SEO, that makes perfect sense. But I'm having a little trouble wrapping my mind around how that's supposed to scale up for an outside agency responsible for the SEO of 5 or 10 or 50 other companies. One of the biggest factors in my misunderstanding of the system is the reasoning for creating content in the first place. I absolutely understand how a professional in some field (let's say dentistry for example) could write up some insightful, accurate blog post about why flossing is great. After all, a dentist does (or should, hopefully) have a level of expertise on the subject that most people don't have. That blog post is a tangible addition of value to the website for anyone curious about the subject. But why would anyone want to read a blog post about wisdom teeth written by just some random person at a marketing company? If that person has the time to do a lot of research and BECOME something of an authority on the subject of dental care, then that's fine. But what if they also need to create content for clients that do plumbing, car repairs, and cooking? I don't really see how someone can become enough of an expert on enough subjects and still have any time to do the other parts of their job. Maybe I'm just expecting too much, but I sort of feel that the internet is already full enough of advice and information from people that have no idea what they're talking about, so content from someone that's not an expert (but is a marketing person that the expert hired) seems... frivolous to me. So to get back to the actual question, should/can an SEO ask their clients to create at least some of their own content, or is it the SEO's responsibility to generate all the content, even if it's not always stellar? Or is it just one of those "Could God make a rock so big that he couldn't lift it? Yes, he could, and then he would lift it" (or however that saying went) sorts of deals? Thanks for the feedback, this can all be kind of overwhelming for me at times. *"Creating content" in this specific case meaning writing blog posts, making videos, etc.
Image & Video Optimization | | BrianAlpert781 -
Image Gallery - Name of the image files
I would like to know If I have a image gallery in my website, what name must I put in the image files? Can I associate with the my key-word? Ex: Post about pizza buffet, and than... the images can have the name "pizza-buffet-01, pizza-buffet-02"? Is it wrong? Thank you
Image & Video Optimization | | otimizador20130 -
Correct image alt-txt length
Hi all, I am new to SEO, and just getting up and running optimising our company's website. We have a lot of images of our products on the website, and I would like to optimise the alt-text. Is there a recommended maximum length for alt-text, as there is for title tags etc? Thanks in advance, Gareth
Image & Video Optimization | | gdavies090319770