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Image Optimisation - What's the Best Practice?

by dreamtoreality
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Say that your keyword is "iPhone Review" and you want to use five different images in the body of your article.

1. Should the Title and Alternative Text always describe the photo - i.e. if it's a photo of the iPhone's battery, then is it better to use "iPhone battery" or your keyword - "iPhone Review?"

2. Do you need to label both the Title and Alternative Text?

3. If the answer's yes, then is it okay to use the same headings for both.

4. If not, which one is considered more important?
#factors #image #optimisation #practice
  • Profile picture of the author petemcal
    If you've ever used Google's reverse image search you'll see the identification power they have just through machine analysis of images.

    For this reason I would highly suggest using alt tags & title to genuinely describe the photo rather than to integrate keywords. They don't seem to be clamping down on mis-description or semi-irrelevant use of tags currently. BUT you're only 1 algorithm update away from a slap. With new Panda updates being released monthly that's a big risk to take!

    I would say following a logical path the answer to your second question is that image titles are more for users and image alt tags are more for search engines and crawlers.
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    • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
      Originally Posted by petemcal View Post

      If you've ever used Google's reverse image search you'll see the identification power they have just through machine analysis of images.

      For this reason I would highly suggest using alt tags & title to genuinely describe the photo rather than to integrate keywords. They don't seem to be clamping down on mis-description or semi-irrelevant use of tags currently. BUT you're only 1 algorithm update away from a slap. With new Panda updates being released monthly that's a big risk to take!

      I would say following a logical path the answer to your second question is that image titles are more for users and image alt tags are more for search engines and crawlers.
      Thanks for your help, but I'm still not sure if both should use the exact same text. If there's a picture of an iPhone battery it makes sense to label the title "iphone battery" and the alt tag as "iphone battery" as well. How would you label the two?

      I suppose I could label the image title as "Click for a larger image of the iPhone's battery" and the alt text as "iPhone battery."
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      • Profile picture of the author petemcal
        Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

        Thanks for your help, but I'm still not sure if both should use the exact same text. If there's a picture of an iPhone battery it makes sense to label the title "iphone battery" and the alt tag as "iphone battery" as well. How would you label the two?

        I suppose I could label the image title as "Click for a larger image of the iPhone's battery" and the alt text as "iPhone battery."
        Personally I don't see any problem in having the title and alt tags using the same text. This one is more of a personal preference/judgement call I guess.
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  • Profile picture of the author challanger
    "iphone batter" as a title
    "iphonne battery review" as a alt tag

    alt tag provide real description and title tells major.
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    Abdul Wahab
    Sr. Internet Marketer
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  • Profile picture of the author jpweber
    Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

    Say that your keyword is "iPhone Review" and you want to use five different images in the body of your article.

    1. Should the Title and Alternative Text always describe the photo - i.e. if it's a photo of the iPhone's battery, then is it better to use "iPhone battery" or your keyword - "iPhone Review?"

    2. Do you need to label both the Title and Alternative Text?

    3. If the answer's yes, then is it okay to use the same headings for both.

    4. If not, which one is considered more important?
    The alt ("alternative") tag, probably more important, is literally used for those who have browsers that don't support images, or load them very slowly. All images must include an alt tag.

    Title tags are just for that -- to describe the title of what the image is. I've never heard of such a penalty for using the same words for both the alt and title tags. It's a lot easier when you're copying and pasting, anyway. Title tags are what you see as a tooltip when hovering over the image.

    It's not like it's anchor text that you vary here and there when backlinking.

    Remember, alt is not a valid attribute for <a tags. So speaking specifically of images, here's my two cents:
    • Use alt to describe images.
    • Use title to describe where the link is going.
    • The title attribute seems to get more and more ignored. Google looks far more for the link text than the title attribute. For G, the title tag is like a meta tag which is becoming more and more irrelevant.
    • Image alt tags are however still very important (especially for image search).
    • The main feature of those tags is to provide usability for your users, not to feed information to search engines.
    Hope this helps.
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    JP
    "Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons" ~ Woody Allen

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