Alt tags and image tags

Alt text (alternative to image tag) can help, but it's not going to be a major factor unless your site is made almost exclusively of images. The most important web page elements you require to optimize your website include the title tag, body copy, link text and incoming links.

Alt text provides a search engine with a "translation" of the content of the image (a search engine can't read the text in an image - at least not yet). Alt text is presented in place of an image if the link to the image is broken or the visitor is using a text only browser.

Search engines don't place as much importance on the alt tag as they once did because it can be easily loaded with keywords, Alt text has been widely abused in the past. Because of this search engines don't place a whole lot of value on it. Including Alt text in your web pages is a good design practice, regardless of how much it helps to improve your Search Engine Ranking.

What should an alt tag or image tag look like?

optimising the alt tag
Left Image: This is how the alt tags looks to your visitors as they roll their cursor over an image.
Right Image: This is how the alt tag look when text only is turned on or an image is missing.

And this is what it would look like to a search engine robot.
<A HREF="http://www.seekshare.com.au/"><IMG SRC="seek.gif" WIDTH="250" HEIGHT="80" BORDER="0" ALT="Seek and Share B&B"> </A>

The first part : <A HREF="http://www.seekshare.com.au/"> is the opening of a link tag. This tells Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer that the image or text that follows will be a hypertext link.

The next part: <IMG SRC="seek.gif" WIDTH="250" HEIGHT="80" BORDER="0" tells Explorer or Navigator where to find the image. <IMG SRC="seek.gif" WIDTH="250" HEIGHT="80" BORDER="0"is simply the name of the image. 250x80 is added to the name of the image to indicate the size of the image. Width, height, and border all tell Navigator or Explorer how to display the image.

Finally: ALT="Seek and Share B&B">Tells Internet Explorer or Navigator that the content of the image says "Seek and Share B&B". If the image cannot be displayed for any reason, "Seek and Share B&B" will be displayed in place of the image.

If you use images in your web pages, its good practice to include Alt text for every image that a visitor to your site will see. It can also help your Search Engine Rankings, particularly if the Alt text contains a keyword or two relevant to the topic of the web page of which it is a part.

In addition to Alt text be sure to pay particular attention to web page title tags, link text, web page headers and of course, the actual body copy of your web pages.

Optimized ALT and image tags - is search engine friendly!

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Adding the "alt tag" | image tag to all your website images.

Why adding a keyword rich alt or image tag can increase your search engine ranking.

What should an alt tag or image tag look like?

Optimized ALT and image tags - is search engine friendly!