Most people know about keywords, sitemaps, and other standard SEO concepts, but one that sometimes gets forgotten is the Alt tag.Â
This nifty tool is a tag associated with an image on your site page or content, and it’s actually a pretty big part of ranking high in Google.
Let’s take a look at what exactly an Alt tag is and what it does for your site’s SEO.
What is an Alt Tag?
According to Antonie Meeker, CEO of AM Marketing SEO, alt tags are text information added to images on your site. They’re text descriptions of what is in each image, essentially.
These tags are far more important than you may think, though.
Why are Alt Tags Important?
Alt tags are important for your SEO rank, and they’re important for your audience, too.
Let’s look at each of those real quick.
Why They’re Important for SEO:
Google doesn’t have eyes. It doesn’t exactly scan images and say “Oh, yeah. That’s relevant to this user’s search”. Instead, it skims your alt tags to determine what an image is about and how relevant it is to a user’s search or your content in general.
It then factors that information into your search result ranking.
If you don’t use alt tags, or you don’t create good alt tags, Google will start deducting from your site’s ranking regardless of how much effort you put into the rest of your content. This can leave you with lackluster results even when you deserve much better.
It’s important to consider this, and you have to put unique, useful, alt tags on every image on your website. This will help maximize your ranking by making it easier for Google to determine how relevant your imagery is to your content and what users are searching for.
Why They’re Important for Your Audience:
As I said, alt tags aren’t just important for your SEO ranking. They help your audience, too. Websites aren’t perfect, and sometimes images don’t load properly. You can see this on some of the most complex and well-coded sites around such as Facebook.
When that imagery doesn’t load, your audience can’t see it. However, unloaded images may have their alt tags displayed to relay what that image depicts. This can be key to providing your audience with information even when your website isn’t functioning properly or their hardware isn’t properly loading it.
As a website owner and business professional, you should want your audience to have the best experience possible. So, this is just as important of a benefit as the effect alt tags have on your SEO efforts.
