All About the “alt” Property
The alt property, often referred to somewhat incorrectly as an “alt tag”, is a way of adding contextual information to an image. In other words, it’s a bit of code that should be used to describe your image.
While these properties can be used for SEO purposes, you should keep in mind that their primary purpose is to describe an image to visitors who require a screen reader or otherwise won’t be able to see the image. Tell Google what the image is about is only secondary to that primary purpose, and using it as it’s intended is always going to be better in the long run, as Google weeds out those sites that are abusing the alt property for SEO purposes.
Let’s look at a few example use cases.
A Good Example of alt Property Usage
Let’s say you’re writing an article about camping in Colorado. You might have an image like this:
A perfectly good description of that image might be, “a van and a truck camper parked in a field,” and this could suffice for your alt property. The image tag would look like:
<img src="my-camping-image.jpg" alt="a van and a truck camper parked in a field">You’ve described the image, the alt property is there, and it’s valid. Good work.
A Great Example of alt Property Usage
Of course, that doesn’t exactly describe the image and what it’s truly conveying. A better example?
“a silver Ford van is parked parallel with a white Ford F150, crowned with a truck camper setup against the backdrop of tree-covered hills, wildflower-laden fields and craggy rocky mountains”
<img src="my-camping-image.jpg" alt="a silver Ford van is parked parallel with a white Ford F150, crowned with a truck camper setup against the backdrop of tree-covered hills and craggy rocky mountains">Even better. You’ve done the job of painting that picture more elaborately than just the basics. While nothing is wrong with our first example, this one is simply better.
The Best Example of alt Property Usage, Including SEO
We can take it even further though, and not only describe our image but include the relevant SEO terms at the same time. Remember, our article is all about camping in Colorado. That’s easy enough to add.
“a silver Ford van is parked parallel with a white Ford F150, crowned with a truck camper setup against the backdrop of tree-covered hills, wildflower-laden fields and craggy rocky mountains, camping outside of Crested Butte, Colorado”
Simple enough to add the location there. Now we’re left with:
<img src="my-camping-image.jpg" alt="a silver Ford van is parked parallel with a white Ford F150, crowned with a truck camper setup against the backdrop of tree-covered hills and craggy rocky mountains, camping outside of Crested Butte, Colorado">We’ve got keywords relevant to our article, while still legitimately describing the image. For the win!
A Terrible Abuse of Using the alt Property for SEO-first Purposes
“Camping, camp, Truck camper, camper van, Colorado, CO, Crested Butte CO, Crested Butte Colorado”
Google is much smarter than this these days. You’ve gone and tried to convince them that they should rank this image and this article based around a bunch of non-contextual keywords. You’re likely to get penalized before you get ranked for this.
Additionally, now those visitors that rely on the alt property have to sit and listen to what amounts to a bunch of gobbledy gook. You lose, and they bail on the site after having to hear this a few times.
So what to do?
Simply describe your images as precisely and interestingly as possible, integrating any keywords, not just stuffing them in there.
Happy imaging!