It is essential to optimize your website images for SEO to drive more organic traffic to your website. This search engine optimization concept is about adding the right keywords to the ALT text of your images so that your website and the pages can rank higher on the Google search engine results. The fact is that the higher your page ranks on Google, the more prospective customers will be able to notice your products and services.
SEO optimization often comes from text, but visuals also have a high impact on SEO. Your image ALT texts play a significant role in helping Google search engines to understand what your images are all about. The small descriptions on your images (alternative Texts), assist the Google bots in 'Seeing' your images. As a result, your image will also contribute in ranking your pages on the Google search engine.
What is image alt text
Alt text simply means alternative text. An alternative text is a small description that describes the images or any picture on your website. Image alt texts are not actually visible on the page, but on the source code of your site as a HTML alt attribute/code. As such, the Google search engines will read what is on the alt code to interpret your images. Therefore, image alt texts are essential in assisting Google bots in understanding your images and their content, thus rank them accordingly on the Google search engine.
The essence of image alt text
Adding the alternative text description to all the images on your website is significant for the following reasons;
1. Your image will be ranked on the Google search engine: The image alt texts play a significant role in ranking your site on the Google results, as the image description contains essential keywords necessary for Google your ranking. A third of all the searches that are performed by Google relate to image search. By adding image alt texts, you will drive more traffic to your website.
2. Improve your website SEO: SEO-friendly images optimize your site for a higher Google ranking. It is recommended to have at least one image on every page. So Google knows that you also assist your readers with images to better understand the topic you are talking about.
3. Improve your website accessibility: There are diverse visitors to your website, some of who have disabilities, such as visual impairments. The persons with visual impairments can use screen readers to understand the content of your image. Hence, by adding the image alt texts, you will be making your content accessible to all.
How to write effective image alt text
1. Understand your goal: Your aim is to let your images communicate the intended meaning of the page you place them on. What is the message that you want your image to pass to a reader? You will want to add image descriptions depending on the overall objective of your website, keywords, as well as parts of your brand identity. Be as precise as possible in describing your images.
2. Add keywords: Keywords are the words or phrases that potential clients will type on the Google search engine. Keywords are essential in improving your website's accessibility. So it is important to add the right keywords to your image alt text. To find the relevant keywords, put yourself in the shoes of a searcher, what kind of words do you think they would type into the Google search bar when looking for your website, your product or services? Note that you need to avoid keyword stuffing and make the keywords as informative as possible as you will be speaking to human beings.
3. Offer an accurate description of your image: Offer a great description that is accurate in order to help the Google search engines to understand what is displayed on your images. Do not use too fancy or complicated words to describe your images; rather, be simple and clear.
4. Keep it short.
Ensure that your image alt text does not exceed 125 characters to improve its chances of being read by the Google bots. Only describe the most crucial details of your image.
Your aim is to let your images communicate the intended meaning of the page you place them on. What is the message that you want your image to pass to a reader? You will want to
Conclusion
Adding image alt text is one of the basic SEO adjustments but at the same time it has a great impact on your organic reach. You could further optimize your images by enhancing the performance of the image on the page to increase its loading speed. Also, improve the resolution of your images, without compromising their loading speed.
We have an image resize tool that works in real time on your website. So our clients don't need to worry about the size or quality of the uploaded images.
We can let you upload files up to 15mb and make sure that they are hosted on a server which preloads them to the right size of the devices that you are viewing them on. Always the right quality, from a mobile phone to a computer or a 4k TV without compromising the speed of your website or your image quality.
We are sure that you now how to write SEO Friendly Alt Text for Your Images. Do not hesitate to contact our team if you have any additional questions.
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