One of the most commonly overlooked SEO improvements is the effective use of the Alt tag for your images. If you aren’t familiar with the concept of Alt Text, it is simply an optional HTML attribute that can be included inside of the <IMG> tag. The original intention of the Alt Text was to provide a text description of a web page’s images for those using text browsers. The Alt Text would also be displayed in place of the image if the image file can’t be found.
Today, the implications of the Alt Text are much greater. Search engines such as Google often use an image’s Alt Text to help determine what the image is and what it relates to. This is what makes the Alt attribute such an effective SEO tool. Adding keyword-optimized Alt Text to your images can help to boost your page’s search rankings for that keyword. It is a great way to increase keyword prominence and thereby increase you search ranking.
To add Alt Text to and image, you just need to make a simple adjustment to the HTML code for the image. The Alt attribute goes within the IMG tag. For example <IMG src=”link to image file” alt=”add keyword-optimized Alt Text here”>. It’s really that easy. Keep in mind, however, that the search engines are getting smarter everyday. Adding the exact same Alt Text to 5 images on a page will be seen as keyword stuffing and will be viewed negatively. It is best to not have the same Alt Text for more than a couple of images, although you can use similar descriptions for all of the images on a page. The key is that it looks as natural as possible.
If you aren’t using the Alt attribute on your web pages currently, adding optimized image descriptions can really boost your SEO.
