SEO benefits of terms used in Alt-tag, image name, page title
-
On our website, we have products that come in different colours, and we have created a different SKU for each one .e.g. our Acacia Evening Dress comes in 3 different colours (black, blue and red) - Acacia Evening Dress Black (J7048BLK), Acacia Evening Dress Blue (J7048RB), Acacia Evening Dress Red (J7048R).
Would it be beneficial for SEO if on the image Alt-tag we used the terms 'Jadore J7048 Red Acacia dress', 'Jadore J7048 Black Acacia dress' and 'Jadore J7048 Blue Acacia dress', because 'Acacia' is the internal name we have given to this dress, not the name provided by the label, Jadore, as more customers would search for terms such as 'black dress' or 'Jadore J7048'? Can we use the same terms in the Alt-tag on the image and the page title? How important is the Alt-tag in searching?
-
Ecommerce marketplace for local classes here. We have over 3K SKUs on the site and I'd agree with what Dimitrii suggested. As an add-on to what he said, I'd also strongly suggest that you ensure the site's overall SEO architecture is well positioned to rank on a variety of keywords (depending on what your keyword research says of course).
For example,
-
Our home page targets the broadest keywords (local classes etc.)
-
Category pages targets 2nd tier keywords (baking classes, cooking classes etc)
-
Product pages targets long-long-tail keywords (macaron baking class in the east)
I find that this approach works very well for ecommerce sites with a broad range of categories. In your case, Evening Dresses might be a category of it's own, with each SKU page ranking for its own long-tail keywords. As Dimitrii mentioned as well, image search does contribute a fair amount of traffic on it's own, and we've even received backlinks from site-owners who found our image via image search, and credited our site with a backlink
It's best to optimize the images you post up to be as descriptive as possible. Being an ecommerce site owner, I personally know your pain with hundreds if not thousands of SKUs, but cumulatively, it does make an impact and will help!
-
-
Hi there.
You sure can add whatever you want. The question is about if it's going to help your SEO. If you going to have "buy online in australia" in title, meta, content, alt-tags then it is going to be overstuffing.
What you should be doing is "theme-ing" pages. Each page should target 1-2 related keywords with supportive content for those keywords (lets say pictures with related names, titles, alt-tags etc).
ALWAYS think of user experience. As I mentioned before - alt-tags are for when img does load or for visually impaired. So, if i get "best wedding dress store" instead of image of a dress - that's not cool. However, it would be ok to have something like "designer wedding dress - online store in sydney". Basically, you can incorporate descriptive, promotional and seo words together.
Hope this helps.
-
Dear Dmitrii,
Thank you so much for your reply. It is very helpful.
We are a bridal store selling wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses. We are wanting to know how much our URL and page title can differ, whilst still optimising SEO.
For example, for the category Wedding Dresses, the url is wedding dresses, so can we use " the best wedding dresses in Sydney" in the page title?
For the bridesmaid dresses (URL is /bridesmaiddresses/) can we use " buy best bridesmaid dresses online in Australia"?
Can we use terms such as "buy best black dress in sydney", "buy online in australia" or "shop online in sydney" in the alt-tag, apart from the page title .i.e. adding extra keywords in the alt-tag that do not appear in the title? Would this be classified as keyword stuffing?
In our main categories .e.g. Wedding Dresses, can we add "best wedding dress store", "buy wedding dresses from best wedding store in sydney" in the alt-tag?
Thank you.
-
Hi there.
The purpose of alt tag is to describe the image if doesn't load and for visually impaired users, who use screen reader programs. So, i would go with more descriptive "black dress" than not-telling-me-anything "jadore 1234".
Also alt tag is used a lot in image search, so, if your business can benefit from image search, then it would make sense to include a little more details in alt tag than "black dress". Maybe something like "affordable jadore flared black dress - 'company name'".
Hope this 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
-
Does Google Image Search consider meta data (EXIF) when looking for a location?
Does Google Image Search consider meta data (EXIF) when looking for a location? Is it essential to define the meta data in order to rank top with images?
Image & Video Optimization | | fduo0 -
Using Facebook for Places page
I have been using Facebook for my website for some of my client, Previously it use to get ranked fast and I have one of my client of the very top for one of my clinets main keyword. I took another the same Nitch but in a different location, but they don't seem to be getting ranked.
Image & Video Optimization | | joeuglyhat0 -
Does displaying a mobile number for business hurt local SEO?
Perhaps a silly question but could someone please clarify if displaying a mobile number in the main site or Google places etc would hurt local SEO? Is having a regional landline/fixed telephone number a ranking factor? EDIT: This is for a UK site, does anyone have experience of this is UK please?
Image & Video Optimization | | Clicksjim0 -
City/Town content pages for a local business
Earlier this month I asked a private question on the use of schema for service area pages on a home improvement contractors website. The question led to Miriam Ellis giving me some great ideas about creating content for pages specific to the clients service area. The goal here would be to rank for [roofing contractor + city] using a URL similar to: mycompany.com/service-areas/city-state A great idea Miriam gave me for creating content for these pages: Showcasing a previous project in that city/town with a well-written project description, photos, videos and client testimonials. Her advice is excellent and I wanted to share it with you. I also wanted to open up the discussion and see what others have had success with. If the company is relatively new, and doesn’t have the work history to create pages such as this, what would you do?
Image & Video Optimization | | WilliamCarr0 -
Thinking about using a Public Relations firm to post articles
How much value is there in links from articles sent to places like Yahoo and Topix. Various news sources. I have about 20 related topics we can publish articles on in order to try and get some higher rankings from a few key word phrases. Is 4 a month okay? Would 1 a day be okay. Just looking to help to compete with the big guys in my industry. Any past experience or advice is appreciated. Boo
Image & Video Optimization | | Boodreaux0 -
Will putting images in a light box or photo gallery affect my image SEO?
A website that is very image heavy and would like to enhance the user experience with a photo gallery. How will this affect the indexing of these photos? Can I still add alt. tags and title tags to these images?
Image & Video Optimization | | Unidev0 -
Name Change in Google Places
In the middle of a nightmare in Google Places. Dealing with a number of Chiropractic franchises. They all had previous practices (and Places listings). In many cases, a duplicate listing was created. Some locations are "under review", others have lost their ranking and a few are ranking for both location in the 7 pack.(usually because they had a different phone number used so I assume Google sees it as a separate company despite the same location) I am trying to fix all these duplicate or near duplicate listings that were created previously. In one case I edited the existing listing and tried to verify by phone. I got the 5 digit code but Google then said code is not valid. Has anyone been through a similar situation? Should I delete/deactivate old listing and Then optimize the remaining or vice versa? A complete mess. In some cases they may have four listings...old company, new franchise and new name, Doctors names. Any insight appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | AgileInt0 -
Multi-site listings in Google Local/Place pages
I've had problems with a client that is a local medical center with multiple sites/addresses. We've created a Place Page for each location and linked it to the location page on the client's website that matches the address on the Place page. But that means we're not linking to the medical center's home page -- and Google Places doesn't like that. I know this because after we'd owner-verified each Place Page, Google went in and just changed the website link that was a deep link to a location page and replaced it with a link to the home page. But now there's not an address match. How should we handle this? Related question: Does it make sense to claim a separate listing in Yelp and other local directories for each of the separate locations since they each have a unique address? Will Yelp & other local directories allow for links to non-home pages on the client's website?
Image & Video Optimization | | DenisL0