Using images is a great way of building search traffic to your website. Google loves images, and using them with your content can help boost your website’s search engine ranking. The habit of searching for images on Google has become popular among search engine users, and images have become a driving force of traffic that helps improve a website’s ranking on Google.
Search engine optimization strategy now involves using images to expand content online visibility on the web. The most promising way of optimizing images on search is the use of Alt text for images.
We have discussed Alt tags in detail in this article. Read it thoroughly, and make sure you use them in your SEO strategy.
The concept of Alt Text
The use of alt text became popular as a method of optimizing your image description that will help the search engine to index it better for search. The alt text, also known as the alternative text, will provide the search engine bot an idea about the image you are using on your content.
It is a good search engine optimization practice to use alt text to your images to help the search engine to understand what search text to associate your images based on the search engine user query.
The Benefits of Alt text on Images
Some are wondering whether an Alt text on images can really benefit their search engine ranking. In the first place, images cannot convey a message to the search engine bot.
That is why alternative texts are used in order to make the bot understand what the image is about. The use of Alt text does help your SEO campaign as it provides the search engine bot the ability to read the text to associate the images using keywords for search results easily.
There are many ways by which the Alt text on images can help optimize your search ranking, SEO campaigns, and the usability of your content:
- It improves the accessibility of your content to your readers with disabilities.
- It helps to reinforce the relevance of your image to your content even when the user chooses to disable images on their browser.
- The alt text will make your images known to your website viewer with a very slow internet connection.
- Using alt text is very useful when a website user uses a browser that cannot interpret graphic content.
Optimizing the use of Alt Text to improve Search Ranking
Search ranking tools like the one offered by seranking.com show that most websites that use the Alt text attribute on their website images perform better on search. To optimize your search rank on Google, make sure to use the Alt text properly with these basic Alt text rules:
- Do not stuff your Alt text with keywords. Use no more than ten words to describe your images for proper SEO.
- If you are using images on your eCommerce site, make sure to add the model or brand of your product for more specific search results.
- Describe the image in plain English.
- When using keywords for Alt text, make sure that it is readable.
- When using HTML, image users often get confused when using the title tag and the alt tag for their images. The former is mainly for human readers, while the latter is mainly for search engine bot readers. Make sure to use both for SEO and accessibility purposes of your content.
- When selling multiple products of the same category, make sure to name each product differently to give distinction on search. Specify the serial number or type, or brand to avoid repeating the same Alt text attribute on multiple images.
Alt Text Attribute and SEO
Using the Alt text on images is a good SEO practice. Google relies on keywords or texts to understand images. Using relevant keywords from your content as your Alt text can help optimize the search engine’s ability to associate your images on the search query of its users. With the proper use of the Alt text, you can improve your web page ranking for search.
Final Word
Alt Tags are one of the most unused elements by marketers these days. Don’t make this mistake and include Alt Tags in your SEO strategy. If you’re from New Zealand, you can also type in “SEO company Auckland,” and you’ll find several competent SEO agencies that will take care of the SEO tasks for you.
