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
-
Null Alt Image Tags vs Missing Alt Image Tags
Hi, Would it be better for organic search to have a null alt image tag programatically added to thousands of images without alt image tags or just leave them as is. The option of adding tailored alt image tags to thousands of images is not possible. Is having sitewide alt image tags really important to organic search overall or what? Right now, probably 10% of the sites images have alt img tags. A huge number of those images are pages that aren Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
SEO value of article title content?
I work for an online theater news publisher. Our article page titles include various pieces of data: the title, publication date, article category, and our domain name (theatermania.com). Are all of these valuable from an SEO standpoint? My sense it'd be cleaner to just show the title (and nothing more) on a SERP. But we'll certainly keep whatever helps us with rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheaterMania0 -
Does alt tag optimization benefit search rankings (not image search) at all?
The benefits of alt tag optimization for traditional SEO has always been a "yo yo" subject for me. Way back in the day (2004 to 2007) I believed there was some benefit to alt tag SEO. However as time went on I saw evidence that the major search engines were no longer considering alt tag SEO as a ranking signal. However I later had the pleasure to work on a joint project with a high end SEO firm in 2011/2012. My colleagues fully believed that alt tag optimization was still a very important strategy for traditional SEO at that time. Is there any evidence available that alt tags still help with traditional SEO nowadays? I'm fully aware of the benefits of optimized alt tags and image search. However could optimized alt tags be one of those ranking factors that Google removed due to abuse and later quietly resurrected?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Why Doesn't Moz Use Wistia Backlink Embed Feature
I am using Wistia videos for my website and they have an embed feature which gives option to include a backlink to one's site, which I thought was great. I took a random Moz whiteboard Friday video (http://moz.com/blog/what-should-i-put-on-the-homepage-whiteboard-friday) and I do not see the backlink feature if I click on "embed" button below the video. Question: why would Moz not use such feature? Bad SEO or simply because Moz does not need it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
No PageRank but good Moz stats?
Hi, Why would a website with good Moz stats such as DA/PA 45, mR/mT 5.0+ have 0 PageRank? Have these sites done something? I have seen some sites with similar Moz stats have PR3/4 and when I have checked a year later the PR has dropped to 0. Does that indicate Google has hit those sites and removed their PageRank? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bondara0 -
Can use of the id attribute to anchor t text down a page cause page duplication issues?
I am producing a long glossary of terms and want to make it easier to jump down to various terms. I am using the<a id="anchor-text" ="" attribute="" so="" am="" appending="" #anchor-text="" to="" a="" url="" reach="" the="" correct="" spot<="" p=""></a> <a id="anchor-text" ="" attribute="" so="" am="" appending="" #anchor-text="" to="" a="" url="" reach="" the="" correct="" spot<="" p="">Does anyone know whether Google will pick this up as separate duplicate pages?</a> <a id="anchor-text" ="" attribute="" so="" am="" appending="" #anchor-text="" to="" a="" url="" reach="" the="" correct="" spot<="" p="">If so any ideas on what I can do? Apart from not do it to start with? I am thinking 301s won't work as I want the URL to work. And rel=canonical won't work as there is no actual page code to add it to. Many thanks for your help Wendy</a>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0 -
Blocking Pages Via Robots, Can Images On Those Pages Be Included In Image Search
Hi! I have pages within my forum where visitors can upload photos. When they upload photos they provide a simple statement about the photo but no real information about the image,definitely not enough for the page to be deemed worthy of being indexed. The industry however is one that really leans on images and having the images in Google Image search is important to us. The url structure is like such: domain.com/community/photos/~username~/picture111111.aspx I wish to block the whole folder from Googlebot to prevent these low quality pages from being added to Google's main SERP results. This would be something like this: User-agent: googlebot Disallow: /community/photos/ Can I disallow Googlebot specifically rather than just using User-agent: * which would then allow googlebot-image to pick up the photos? I plan on configuring a way to add meaningful alt attributes and image names to assist in visibility, but the actual act of blocking the pages and getting the images picked up... Is this possible? Thanks! Leona
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HD_Leona0 -
Canonical Tag Uses Source Title and Meta Data?
When optimising a regional same language micro site within a sub folder of a .com it dawned on me that our use of the hreflang and canonical meta elements will render individual elements such as H1 and title obsolete. As a canonical tag takes the canonical source title and meta right? It would still have value in optimising localised headings though? Appreciate any thoughts, suggestions (o:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 3wh0