~~~High Search Engine Rankings~~~
From: Doug Schumacher
Subject: alt text = html text?
Jill,
One thing I'm still not sure of is whether or not Alt Text is a good
SEO alternative to HTML text. Being design oriented, I typically use
graphics where many sites might use HTML. As you know, the Alt Text
can contain about anything entered.
As much as I believe in SEO, I'm also trying to create a dynamic
experience once they decide to check it out.
Sincerely,
Doug Schumacher
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Doug,
Very good question! I don't believe we've talked much about the Image
Alt tag before, so this is a great opportunity to do so.
The short answer to your question is, no, the Alt tag should not be
used as a substitute for HTML text. However, let's discuss this tag
in greater detail to understand why this is true.
First, for our beginners out there who may not even know what an Alt
tag is, here's a quick explanation. When you hover your cursor over an
image/graphic on most Web pages, the words that show up in a sort of
rectangular "bubble" are the words from the Alt tag. Go to any site
and try it yourself. You'll find some images have no words
showing up, which means they didn't use the Alt tag; some will
describe the image, and others may say the image file name. If the
page was optimized by an SEO geek, you'll probably see some important
keyphrases appear in the bubble.
The Alt tag was created as a way to describe images to those who used
strictly text-based browsers (such as Lynx), and/or to those who
surfed with their images turned off. In the old days of the Net,
there were a lot of people surfing under those conditions. These
days, I very much doubt there are many who surf without images. With
faster modems and bandwidth, there's just no reason for it. However,
there are people with visual disabilities who cannot see the graphics.
They use special text reader software, which can read the Alt tags for
them, so that the surfer does not miss anything important. Remember,
a graphical navigation button that says "Home" in writing to the
average surfer, would say nothing to one with the graphics turned off.
If you care about your site being accessible to everyone, you would
want to be sure and put the word "Home" in the Alt tag of that
particular image.
What's this all got to do with search engine optimization, you may
ask? Well, many years ago, the search engines realized that
information placed within Alt tags just might possibly have some
relevance to the basic theme of the site. Some engines decided to use
them in their ranking formulas. For instance, if you sell Timex
watches and have a photo of one on your site, it would be common sense
to put something like, "Timex watch" in the Alt tag for that image.
This would be good for both the search engines and your potential
prospects.
But what about those pesky navigational buttons? It's not going to do
your search engine rankings any good if you simply put "Home" in the
alt tag of that button. You *could* put just a keyphrase in the Alt
tag, but then you might be alienating yourself from your disabled
surfers. I am ashamed to admit that I used to do that, until I got
reamed out by a few designers who (rightly) felt very strongly about
Web sites being accessible to all. {Waving to Shirley!} Since then,
I have compromised. Now, when it comes to navigation buttons, such as
our friendly Home button, I will put something like this in the Alt
tag: Alt="HOME - My important keyphrase for that home page goes here."
And for each subsequent button, I do the same thing.
Many designs these days make use of clear spacer images to keep the
design all lined up properly. When this type of site comes to me for
optimization, I do utilize the Alt tags in the clear images for
keyphrases. I wouldn't personally add clear images with this purpose
in mind, but if they happen to be there already, I will use 'em!
I don't know if there's a limit to the number of words an engine can
read in an Alt tag, but I try to limit mine to no more than seven
words or so (although I really don't count them). Very often what
I'll do is simply take the exact words I've used in my Title tag, and
use them in my Alt tags. I get a bit nervous about repeating the
exact same Alt tag over and over again, so I usually try to mix up the
word order a bit. I'll also omit some words from some tags, and add
others to other tags. Just be creative. At best, you may be given a
little bit of an extra boost in *some* engines by using these Alt
tags. At worst, they'll simply be ignored. I would certainly obey all the same rules as the Meta keyword tag and not repeat the same word
over and over again, nor use any word next to itself. (See my Meta
Keyword article)
Personally, I don't put commas in my Alt tags either.
Now, back to the original question. If search engines are reading
these things, then why not use them instead of real, visible text on
the page? Here's why: If engines *are* reading them, they are smart
enough to use them only as a supplement to the actual text on the
page. If the Alt tags jibe with the body copy, and also with the
Titles and Meta tags, there's good reason to suspect that the
keyphrases involved are relevant. If, however, there is little-to-no
body text, and only Alt tags and Meta tags to judge relevancy, there's
a good chance that the search engines won't be quite so certain about
the keyword relevancy. Since they have no text to work with, those
sites that DO have text would probably be given higher priority in the
results.
The bottom line is, (using my Timex example from above), if you don't
want your Timex watch site to take a licking in the search engines,
then make sure you use lots of visible text that describes the
watches, along with putting "Timex watch" into the Alt tags of the
images.
One final note. If you think you'll get a better idea of what I'm
talking about with the Alt tag by checking out what we did on our Rank
Write site, don't bother. As I've mentioned here before, we really
haven't done any formal optimizing of the Rank Write site. I've
played with some of the Title tags, but that's about it. Alt tags
have been totally ignored, other than what Shirley (our Web designer
extraordinaire) originally put in for us in order to make it
accessible to all!
Jill
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