Alt tagging, also known as alt text, is a fundamental aspect of web accessibility and search engine optimization (SEO). It involves adding a description or alternative text to images, videos, and other multimedia content on a website. Alt tags serve several purposes, including improving web accessibility, helping search engines understand the content of a page, and enhancing the user experience.
Web Accessibility
Alt tagging plays a critical role in web accessibility, which refers to the practice of designing websites and online content to be usable by people with disabilities. People with visual impairments, for instance, may use screen readers to access web content. Screen readers are software applications that read the content of a web page aloud, including images and other multimedia content. However, they cannot interpret images on their own; instead, they rely on alt tags to provide a description of the visual content. By adding alt tags to images and other multimedia content, web designers ensure that screen readers can accurately describe the content to users with visual impairments.
Search Engine Optimization
Alt tagging also plays a crucial role in SEO. Search engines like Google use algorithms to crawl and index web pages. These algorithms analyze the content of a page, including text, images, and other multimedia content, to determine its relevance and usefulness to users. Alt tags provide search engines with a textual description of the content of images and other multimedia content. This allows search engines to understand the content of a page more accurately and rank it appropriately in search results. Websites that use alt tags are more likely to appear in search results than those that do not.
Enhancing the User Experience
Alt tagging also enhances the user experience of a website. When users hover over an image, the alt tag appears as a tooltip, providing a description of the image. This is especially helpful for users with slow internet connections or those using devices with small screens, as they may not be able to see the image clearly. Additionally, alt tags can provide contextual information about an image, such as its purpose, significance, or relationship to other content on the page, making it easier for users to understand the overall message of the page.
Best Practices for Alt Tagging
To ensure that alt tags are effective, it is essential to follow best practices for alt tagging. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:
- Be descriptive: Alt tags should accurately and concisely describe the content of the image. Avoid using generic descriptions like “image” or “photo.”
- Use keywords: Incorporate relevant keywords into your alt tags to help search engines understand the context and relevance of the image.
- Don’t stuff keywords: Avoid overusing keywords in your alt tags, as this can be considered spammy and may harm your SEO efforts.
- Be mindful of length: Keep your alt tags to 125 characters or less to ensure they are fully visible in search results and on small devices.
- Prioritize accessibility: When creating alt tags, prioritize accessibility by ensuring they accurately describe the content of the image for users with disabilities.
In conclusion, alt tagging is an essential aspect of web accessibility and SEO. By providing a textual description of images and other multimedia content, alt tags improve the user experience, enhance search engine visibility, and ensure that web content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. When done correctly, alt tagging can help websites rank higher in search results, attract more visitors, and provide a better overall user experience.
More about ALT tagging:
Google podcast talks about Alt Text for accessibility and SEO purposes
While it may be tricky to balance Alt text for accessibility and SEO purposes, one important practice is to never leave the field blank because something is better than nothing.
Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-on-alt-text-seo-accessibility/468044/