Image ALT TAGS, TITLES and SEO

Building on a recent post by JayTheHomeGuy SEO Tips You Can Start Using TODAY!

Good post, Jay.

More about ALT TAGS... ALT TAGS provide understandable content and context for the robots. Jay articulated one way to provide context by naming a listing image file with something more descriptive - i.e. the room and property address - can provide that context too. Good tip.

However, many websites when you upload an image convert the original file name to something very cryptic to store on the website server. e.g. In Jay's post Jay's Google juice image is uploaded as follows:

/image_store/uploads/7/9/2/5/7/ar133219174275297.jpg.

Now this doesn't make sense to anyone.

You can use the ALT TAG and/or the TITLE TAG to help the robots understand what the image is all about.

It's a prefect place to use the ALT TAG and label it "The Google Juice Container" or something like that.

There is also the mouse-over or tool tip field for images. That's what shows up when you run the mouse over the image without clicking. This could be the same as the ALT TAG or you can use it to provide instruction to the website visitor especially if the image is clickable. Go back to Jay's post and see what his tool tip says. Jay's ALT TAG and TITLE TAG are the same.

How do I know all this since I'm not a robot? Simple. You can inspect any web page by right-clicking on the page and selecting "View Source." Then, it takes a little detective work and careful reading.

For the my image above to the right the TITLE is "Rita's Birthday at the Naples Zoo" (mouseover) while the ALT TAG is "Giraffes at the Naples Zoo."

Happy SEOing...