Probably basic, but how to use image Title and Alt Text - and confusing advice from Moz!

[robandsarahgillespie]

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?

[robandsarahgillespie]

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

[ThompsonPaul]

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

[robandsarahgillespie]

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.

[TimHolmes]

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.

[robandsarahgillespie]

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.

[TimHolmes]

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.