This is the third article in my series of Simple SEO Advice, previously I've covered on page headers and the title tag but now let's take a quick look at the dreaded images for search engine optimization.
First off, don't panic. The image tag is a little more advanced than the others but it's still very easy and key to helping you promote your website.
How to use the image tag for search engine optimization
Whenever we place an image on the web, we use something called the <img> tag, it's a core element of the HTML tag library and one that anybody looking for web marketing advice should learn.
The Blogger logo to the right of this paragraph appears in my HTML because I use a basic piece of code which looks like this:
<img src='/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/round-blogger-logo-with-a-fold.png' />
That code isn't enough to let search engines know what the graphic really is because search engines are blind (unable to see graphics). Instead we have to add a special piece of code called an ALT attribute to the image, this shows the alternate text for people who are visually impaired as well as search engines and other computer programs. I'm also going to add a title attribute which is the text that appears when you hover over the image without clicking it, it's similar to an ALT tag but for visual surfing.
<img title=”round blogger logo with a fold” src=”/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/round-blogger-logo-with-a-fold.png” alt=”round blogger logo with a fold” />
As you can now see, the image is easily viewable and contains key data for website visitors as well as search engines such as Google. It doesn't matter which order you place the attributes in, only that each image contain:
- the path to an image
- a title tag for mouse overs
- an ALT tag for the visually impaired
Three easy steps to making your images searchable
There's nothing complex about this tip, but there are three fairly basic easy steps you need to take to ensure your website images are searchable from Google.
- Make use of the image title attribute to give your files visual and accessible attributes
- Use the image ALT attribute to ensure the visually impaired have a clear understanding of the image
- Name your file using keywords such as round-blogger-logo-with-a-fold.png instead of filename.png to help search engines understand the content
When combined with SEO friendly page headers and the title tags, these images make for powerful search engine optimization helpers.
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