Google Images hold over 20% of the search engine market share. That’s more than all of the other search engines competing with Google put together.
Source: Sparktoro Google CTR in 2018: Paid, Organic, & No-Click Searches by Rand Fishkin
As you can see above, the potential for image SEO is huge. If you have images on your site that are worth the user’s attention, you should seize the opportunity.
How to Succeed with Google Images?
You can begin by optimizing a bunch of image SEO-ranking factors such as:
- Alt image text of an image
- Off-page ranking factors
- Title of the page
- Surrounding text of an image
- The uniqueness of an image
- Title HTML attribute
- Filename
- Image dimensions
In this article, I will show you how to optimize the image alt attribute.
5 Benefits of Using Alt Image Text
Alt image text has benefits not only in SEO but also for web accessibility and usability.
1) Alt Image Text is an Important Ranking Factor
Search engines can’t read images, but they can read the alt text, which helps them understand the meaning of the image. Get more traffic to your site by having your images appear in searches.
2) Improve Image Click-through Rate (CTR)
Keywords in the alt attribute can help to improve user’s CTR from search results. It’s visible in a description of the image result, as in this search result:
3) Alt Text as Anchor Text
If an image contains a hyperlink, the alt text represents the anchor text.
4) Web Accessibility
Properly chosen image alt tags are very important in web accessibility. They are used by visually impaired people to understand the context of images.
5) Alt Text Displayed When Images Aren’t Loaded
Not all internet users allow images to be displayed. This is typically due to having internet access with limited data bandwidth. When no image is loaded, the alt image text is visible as seen in the screen capture below:
How to Write SEO-Friendly Alt Text for Your Images: the Basics
Every image should have defined an alt text. Don’t forget about it.
In some cases though, you can leave it empty (alt=””). For example, this works if you use the image to create bullets in a list or as some decoration.
You should also avoid generic alt texts like “picture,” “image,” 123.jpg, etc.
So, what words should you use? Try to imagine that you’re calling your friend. You have to describe him in your image in up to 10 words. What would you say? The answer will be your alt text. Try to be descriptive, but not too much.
To create a new alt text is not so difficult, right? But have you added alt texts to every image on your site in the past? Let’s look at how to find out.
How to Check Your Existing Images for Alt Text
A Fast Check of One Particular Image
Visit one of your web pages in a browser (I used Chrome), open the right-click menu and click on “Inspect.” Then, you will see source code, including alt text:
Inspect All Images on One Web Page
You can quickly check every alt with the Spotibo analyzer. Enter the inspected URL. It will automatically highlight empty and poorly used alt image tags containing filenames or generic tags such as “picture.”
Inspect All Images on a Website
If you want to be really efficient with the image SEO, you should optimize every image on your site. In the previous crawl, using Spotibo, you can see not only one page but an entire website.
This way, you can check alt tags of all images on your website and filter them. For example, if you need to optimize images with “.jpg” filenames, the tool will display it to you like this:
For further reading, I recommend this step-by-step guide on how to audit images of a web site.
Now, you know the basics about alt text, and you also know how to audit it. Let’s move on to the more advanced practices required to overtake your competitors in search engines.
Use Advanced Alt Text Techniques Like a Pro
Different pictures can have different purposes. And sometimes, depending on the context of a web page, the same image can have more than one purpose.
There are three main types of images:
- Informative images: These images are the most important for SEO. They graphically represent concepts and information like photos and illustrations.
- Decorative images: Purpose of an image is to add visual decoration.
- Functional images: An image can have a specific function, in the form of a link or a button.
Informative Images
As said above, if you want to describe an informative image, try to imagine you’re calling your friend; describe it to him in up to 10 words.
What would you say to him if you see this car?
Source: Wikipedia.org.
You say | What he sees |
A car | Too broad! |
BMW | There are so many BMW cars. |
White BMW | Okay… |
White BMW M3 | Ringing a bell. |
White BMW M3 2018 | Sure, I know this car. |
White BMW M3 2018 with dark wheels | I know! I have seen the exact one on a parking slot. |
Source: Pohodo.sk
You say | What he sees |
A girl | Too broad! |
A girl sitting behind the desk | Okay. |
A smiling girl with glasses sitting behind the desk and using a laptop | Great. |
There are a few simple steps on how to create the best alt text.
Alt text checklist of an informative image:
Alternative text should typically:
- Be as exact as possible
- Be relatively short; up to 10 words, but can be a bit longer if necessary
- Include keywords
- Avoid phrases like “image of” or “123.png”
Decorative Images
Sometimes the only purpose of an image is to add visual decoration to the page. Then, the image should be added to a web page with CSS or alt should be empty (alt=””):
Functional Images
Sometimes an image can have a specific function in the form of a link or a button. Here, the alternative text should describe the functionality of the image. For example, a picture of a search button has a “search” function. Therefore, the alt attribute should contain “search”:
If you want to know more about how to use the right alt text in this case, you can find help here: decision tree from W3.org:
The Conclusion
Informative images like photos and illustrations are most important for SEO. Image SEO holds over 20% of the search engine market share. And the competition isn’t so steep. Take this opportunity!
Don’t forget, when you create alt text, always think about its context. Sometimes, the most important thing about the image is its function. And sometimes the image has only a decorative purpose.
Sources
- https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decision-tree/
- https://www.directom.com/image-seo-using-alt-text/
- https://sparktoro.com/blog/google-ctr-in-2018-paid-organic-no-click-searches/
- https://www.reliablesoft.net/image-seo/
- https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-provide-equivalents
Latest posts by Jan Januska (see all)
- Image SEO: How to Write Powerful Alt Image Tags - November 12, 2019
Hello Jan,
As a newbie, I didn’t know about that image alt tag is important for SEO, so thank you so much for sharing this great article with us.
Ricky Smith would love you to read ..Top 7 Best Laptops For Chemical Engineering Students Of 2020
That’s pretty much about image alt text usage. Also does using of keywords as alt tags improves our search results in SERP.
Raghuram would love you to read ..Every Thing About Intraday Trading [Tips An Strategies]
I have been slacking with image ALT tags, usually giving most images within one post the same ALT tag. This guide has opened my eyes to the untapped potential of image ALT tags, so thanks!
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Informative images are really important in writing about abstract issues. And yet they are the most difficult to design: they tend to be very specific so generic images won’t help. Then, writing the seo-friendly Alt Text with only 10 words is even more challenging…
I just recently discovered I was doing my alt text all wrong. I was trying to stuff keywords in, instead of just describing the image in detail, as you demonstrated.
I also read that ensuring the file name of your image is also relevant to SEO as well. The easier to read, the better.
Between alt text, file name, and ensuring the images are compressed for size – many ways you can edge your competition.
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I am new in blogging and I am confused about Alt text of an image, A question arises on my mind, should we give the keyword text on image alt or no?
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Hello Rehmat,
The alt image text should describe the image. Ideally, at least one of the images on a page should contain the target keyword phrase as well.
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Just i read your article really great article about SEO image and alt tag because alt tag is the very important port of image SEO. Please keep sharing in future these type of helpful for others.
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You have explained the concept of ALT image tags very well. It’s been a while I have started blogging. Will Surely implement your concept.
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The content has immense knowledge in it, a lot can be learnt from this post, kudos.
Are ALT images tags helping in improvement of Google rankings??
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Hi Amjad,
They get your images found in images.google.com and bring you more traffic.
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Hey there, it’s really helpful for those who think that they should avoid alt tag or keywords column blank, it’s necessary to be filled for better results. Thanks for sharing I’ll definitely share it with my friends
Very great article such a nice discussion about How to write powerful alt image tag, this is such a great article and you share such a great overview here, this is a powerful article and very helpful for me , and really i will follow your every points, ans i hope it will help me.
So keep sharing your great ideas.
Thanks.
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Optimizing images is just easy SEO real estate that most marketers tend to overlook. Why not make it relevant to your page topic and include a few target keywords to help Google bots read your site better? It will just make your page that much more relevant to your subject/niche.
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Hi Jan Januska,
Thank you for sharing images seo information. Keep It up
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Thank you very much for such an amazing article.
You have completely changed my mind about alt tags after reading your article i felt very confident and i am sure that i will get success by all the points you have mentioned in the article.
Your article had a very unique ways i will suggest everyone should read this beautiful article.
Once again thank you very much.
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Nice Post. I like it. It has complete information what i was looking but, seo is getting really tough these days.
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Great tips! I’ve only recently been using images as a way to better optimize my posts for SEO overall 🙂
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i am a seo analyst this article really helpful for me. i learned lot of information from this post. article is nicely explained easy to understand. thanks for sharing this valuable information with us. keep your good work.
Very useful, especially for a new blogger like me; Thank you!
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Just i read your article really great article about SEO image and alt tag because alt tag is the very important port of image SEO. Please keep shearing in future these type of helpful articles.
thank you so mutch for information great job Jan Januska
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Oh! Only reading this post I know the important of alt imagine. Thank you so much!
Nice information. Thank you for sharing such type of great info. I will share this blog with my friends as well.
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Jan,
Such a detailed article on Image SEO, especially about the significance of alt text (that often neglect). And, I go with your point using keywords in the alt text. I prefer to use related keywords in the different images that I use on a page or post.
And, I like the way you have narrated about ‘describing an image’ with examples (Car and the girl). Great inputs. I still admire how you take a narrow topic ‘alt text’ and offer such broader details. Thanks for it.
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This is honestly one of my biggest points of struggle with an image heavy photography magazine, the lack of words really limits crawling so the real power lies within alt tags I suppose, though even then it’s a big challenge.
Thanks for sharing this Post with us and helping to understand the value of alt txt.
Best read. Made me learn importance of alt image names. Keep writing such a great article on seo so that people like me learn.
I am delighted to come to such a wonderful blog. I am really very impressed to read from top to bottom. I read every single line and understand the essence of the alt tag in the image. I appreciate all the efforts.
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Nice and informative article.
Would like to read more such type of articles.
Tbh, i don’t really concerned about this one. But i just realized that giving alt tags to images is important. Thanks a lot for sharing! I will improve that.
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This article will surely going to help. Thanks for sharing.
This is insightful! And though I’ve been blogging for a while now, this still helps!
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