SEO: How to Write Alt Text for Images
Did you know every day more than 1 billion searches are made on Google Images? In 2019 alone, image search represented 20.45% of all searches in search engines. That’s why it’s crucial to optimise your images.
In this post, we’ll explain 3 easy tips on how to write alt text for images for SEO.
Image SEO: What Is It?
Image SEO, also called image optimisation, is the process of optimising the images on your website to make it easy for Google to find and rank them in image search.
Adding images to your content can encourage people to click through to your website and can also increase organic traffic and rankings in search engines.
Images help to visually describe your content and make it more engaging to readers. However, simply adding them to your content isn’t enough. You need to make it easy for users to search and find these images. And this is where optimising your images and adding alt text for images is an important step in the optimisation process.
So the question you’re probably wondering is, what really are alt text for images?
What Is Alt Text for Images?
Alt text for images is an HTML attribute that’s added to the image tag in the backend of your website. The image tag is used to show images on your website, and the alt text describes them.
If your image can’t be displayed on your website, your visitors can still understand what the image is about from reading the text.
How to Write Alt Text for Images for SEO?
When adding SEO-friendly alt text to your images, it helps Google to understand what your images are about and show them in the image search results. This will help you get more clicks and organic traffic to your website.
1. Take Note To Include Your Focus Keyword
Use your focus keyword in the image alt text where it’s appropriate. The focus keyword is what you want searchers to find your content for. To help you, check out Google Images best practices.
2. Be Specific And Descriptive
Image alt text should be specific and describe your image.
Use both the image’s subject and context as a guide. How would you best describe what your image is about?
3. Don’t Go Over The Character Count
For best practise, keep your alt text less than 125 characters. Long alt texts are difficult to read and not optimal for search engines. It also ensures it’s not going to be cut off by screen-readers as well.
And there you have it! We hope these tips help you understand how to write alt text for images for SEO!
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