ALT and TITLE as descriptive elements

[cools4u]

ALT and TITLE as descriptive elements

Because visually impaired users are often unable to see pictures, they rely heavily on the description associated with them. ALT tag for images and TITLE tag for other elements have become increasingly important in order to fully describe all elements of a web page.


Not everyone using a computer has vision or hands.


In the event that the user can’t view the image—perhaps because he or she is accessing your page over a very slow connection, because an incorrect src attribute has been defined, or because the user is visually impaired and is accessing the content using a screen reader—the alt attribute provides alternative content that can be displayed instead of the image.

[AccuraCast]

Very true.

Also, the alt attribute is not just a place to stuff keywords. It would be nice if webmasters also used it as it was meant to be - to provide an alternative text explanation for the contents of the image!

[SarahPerez10]

You can use the combination of keywords in alt tag and title.

[AussieWebmaster]

alt tags should reflect image and keywords... titles should be keywords but separate for each page

[seovcim]

Hello friends.....

When you're trying to create effective page content that will appeal to both human visitors and search engine spiders, you need to get the most out of every page element. One way to do this is to use ALT and TITLE attributes wherever you can. They increase your site's usability level and promotion possibilities.

Thanks.....

[cryptblade]

Originally Posted by AccuraCast

the alt attribute is not just a place to stuff keywords

The ALT tag ISN'T a place to stuff keywords at all. It's quite useful - and definitely one of those "have your cake and eat it too" type deals whereby you can include keywords and STILL make it useful for the human user.

[Jazajay]

One way to do this is to use ALT and TITLE attributes wherever you can

Hi seovcim,
Doing that would not make the page appeal to humans, and may flag up the page to the search engines depending on how its done.

As Cyptoblade says:

The ALT tag ISN'T a place to stuff keywords at all. It's quite useful - and definitely one of those "have your cake and eat it too" type deals whereby you can include keywords and STILL make it useful for the human user.

The way I build pages is all ways for the human side of it first then after see where it can be improved for the search engines, but only if it makes sense for the humans viewing it as well.

Any one who does conversion testing knows its all about balance. Go to much towards the search engines and you lose the user as the page doesn't make sense. Don't consider the search engines no one will find it. Either way your conversion rate would suck, and that's the most important thing in any web metric.

Lets take an example once a visitor has comes of a SERP looking for fine china say, they would expect to see the words fine china on the page but would not stay if every time they hovered over an image a title pop up pops up saying fine china and the image is of a contact button, the text has fine china on every other line etc... etc...

Also by doing so you may be border line making the site illegal. Last time I checked and this may have gone up, 27 countries have laws governing websites, in the UK it was the 1995 Disability discrimination Act, however that got changed this year to the 2010 equality act. In the US I think its Section 22. Could be wrong.

Now what that says is that the site must be accessible to people with disabilities now before you say yeah but what's the chance of blind users coming to my site that also covers bad eyesight which 1 in 7 people on average have, epilepsy, create a flash site, JavaScript section, that flash's too much and well, colour blindness etc... but that's a different topic.

So by putting alt and title attributes every where that would make the page "unreadable" and here's why.

<img src="someimage.jpg" alt="Fine China" title="Fine China" />

To a blind user, again depending on which screen reader they are using as Thunder doesn't read title attributes, would read out:
Fine china, fine china.
Now 50 images all with that, one would flag up a eval by the search engines I reckon, and two may see a lawsuit especially if the images aren't about fine china because that could be a case of misrepresentation to a blind user who can't see your page. I'm not a barrister, Lawyer for US members, but I wouldn't risk it when its not needed.

That may also effect trust in the eyes of the search engines, as in spamming not great, and I would rather have trust than whacking in pointless keywords.

Also if an image is decorative accessibility best practise says to leave it blank, not not add it as that is worst, but blank.

So add keywords if it makes sense but if the image has nothing to do with fine china on a page about fine china, depending on the context of the image find a better image. That way you may also find your conversion rate goes up as your users don't have to think what's a picture about a whale, with alt text of fine china, am I on the right page. The average user spends 10 seconds on a web page, including load time, 3 seconds loading equals 7 seconds to make that sale, contact, waste 4 on pointless images and well...

[AussieWebmaster]

keyword stuffing and overuse of the same keyword can flag a page for possible over optimization but I have not seen a site penalized for it yet - may get the keyword use disregarded but no penalty per se

[Jazajay]

Strange I can't read where I wrote that?
Maybe I some how imply it.

My point is more that the ALT and title attributes where not designed just to use wherever you can and fill them full of keywords, as stated, and by doing so would be detrimental to loads of areas of web development, accessibility, conversion etc...which would have negative effects on the website.

[AussieWebmaster]

lol... was not directed to you - was a general comment about avoiding stuffing the alt tag and overusing one word for all images

[Jazajay]

Aww I was reading my post thinking how did he read that? lol.

[cryptblade]

The ALT tag is useful - as part of best practices. Better to have it than not.

I find it useful for main, important images. That, along with file naming and content to provide context, proper page titles, etc - all helps.

I agree the Title attribute for images is completely useless as SEO. BUT - for a main image, it's useful. Like a main image on a page or a page gallery, as a user, I like it.

I use Yahoo as example. Their news has images - sometimes the images are a little small. In those cases, the title attribute helps to write out a complete description for me, as a user. The title attribute fills my user experience more, even though I don't have a slow connection or whatever whereby the ALT tag really comes in handy.

[AussieWebmaster]

alt tag is best for blind people who can scroll over text and have it read...

[Elvin]

Using keyword in ALT tag for image optimization is very good. TITLE is tag is very important for seo point view. Title tag should be used in every page of website with relevant keyword.

Elvin

[AccuraCast]

@Elvin That is not strictly correct. The HTML title tag IS very important from an SEO point of view. However, the image title attribute (e.g. <img src="#" title="some title" alt="this is an image" />) is not at all important from an SEO point of view. If anything, keyword repetition in both the title and alt attributes can have a negative effect on ranking.

[jesicawillss]

That's very informative discussion here.
Can you tell me that what search engine crawls, alt or title?

[AccuraCast]

They crawl both, but don't weigh both equally

[webgeek]

Ya, it's true that image and title should be carefully optimized for a webpage for boosting its ranking. Putting good keyword relevant to a site in the title and making it brief but descriptive as well as putting good keyword in image 'alt' tag really does matter and is really effective for a site.

[AussieWebmaster]

People really tend to put too little thought in to alt tags - generally just stuff them full of keywords - doing it right can really make a difference

[wildnetSEO]

When you're trying to create effective page content that will appeal to both human visitors and search engine spiders, you need to get the most out of every page element. One way to do this is to use ALT and TITLE attributes wherever you can. They increase your site's usability level and promotion possibilities.