Alternative text is “alt text” that is the HTML attribute which we use with image tag to describe the image. Following is the syntax:
<img src=” image.jpg” alt=”alt text that gives the description of image”/>
When the browser can not download the image then it displays the alternative text at the place of the image. From that text, user can get an idea of what is there in the image.
How to use alternative text for SEO?
Quality and engaging content is the king of search engine optimization. If we have a lot of text content on our website then visual media like photos, videos, illustrations, and infographic is also required into the content. Images make the content more attractive and consumable. Now the problem with the point of view of SEO is that while computers can pick out general shapes and colors in an image, they can not tell what the image is about. That means when search engines crawl your site it can not see the image and that’s the issue.
If search engines don’t know what’s in an image, there’s no way for them to tell how it relates to the page content, or if it relates at all. They also won’t be able to figure out if it’s relevant to an image search query. Fortunately, there’s a relatively simple way to solve this problem to improve your SEO and user experience: image alternative text.
What is alternative text important for SEO?
For image optimization alt text is considered as the most important factor, after the image file name. You should use the keywords in the image tag to rank high in search results. As we know we write the alt text for images that may not be seen, so be descriptive and detailed while writing the description for an image.
When writing your alt text keep in mind the target keyword for that page. As your image will be related to whatever the content on the page is. So choose one keyword and use it in the description. Using only one keyword can prevent you from keyword stuffing.
Use a natural language while writing the description so that the user can easily understand it. The reasons are:
- Understandable alt text means good user experience, good user experience leads to good SEO.
- When your alt text is similar to the search queries of users that they use to search on Google, there are higher chances of getting more traffic and rank well in search pages.
What’s the difference between alt text versus image title?
To describe the content of the image, alt text and image title are two attributes of the image tag. Alt-text is the main information source for what is the image. Both should be different from each other.
<img src=” image.jpg” alt=” alt text that gives the description of image” title =” title of image”/>
While writing the title you can use the same approach to optimize the images as you do for alt text:
- The user who can not see the image should get an idea from the image title that is there in the image.
- It also helps search engines to understand the image.
- Use keywords that are relevant to the image as well as the content of the page.