SEO And ALT v Title For Images

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Every now and then this little question raises its head and the same information seems to be broadcast. Search engine optimization for you images using the Alt – or using Titles? Problem is – it’s always from the Google perspective.

Google reads the Alt tag – end of story – according to Google:

the “alt” attribute specifies an alternate text for user agents that cannot display images, forms or applets. The “title” attribute is a bit different: it “offers advisory information about the element for which it is set.” As the Googlebot does not see the images directly, we generally concentrate on the information provided in the “alt” attribute. Feel free to supplement the “alt” attribute with “title” and other attributes if they provide value to your users!

Since Google is not the only search engine in town, I suggest you use both and optimize them as accurately as possible. They do need to add value to your user – but there is no reason why they cannot add search engine optimization value as well.

The Alt text is what a visitor is going to see if they have images turned off in their browser so make it meaningful. The title tag can also be optimized using keywords where appropriate. Search engine optimization is not just doing the minimum requirements – some time that little extra may help – particularly on the alternate search engines.