How To Write Alt Tags

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Much is written about alt tags, but not very often do you see anything about how to write one. So I’m going to do that right now.

An alt tag is a tag is often used to describe a photo or graphic. It’s not a way to get more of your keyword in there for the search engines so they’ll know what your content is about, but it can be a good way to add an additional SEO element. Sound contradictory. It isn’t.

Keep in mind that the search engines define graphics by the surrounding text. If you have a paragraph that wraps around the graphic and that paragraph uses your primary keyword and a secondary keyword once each. That isn’t a lot of clues. But if the rest of your content is clearly about a topic related to those keywords then that is a clue. But is it enough of a clue?

There are some dos and don’ts when it comes to alt tags.
Here are a few dos as it relates to writing effective alt tags for your graphics:

• Use a variant of one your on-page keywords
• Keep it short
• Ensure the alt tags describes the photo or graphic

That’s pretty simple, right? Now, how about some don’ts:

• Don’t write a paragraph – one to three words is usually enough
• Don’t stuff keywords into the alt tag; use just one keyword or keyword phrase
• If you have multiple images on the same page, don’t use the same keyword for every image

Alt tags are simple. But they can go a long way to helping your on-page search engine optimization. People can often find your website through an image search so make sure your alt tags are descriptive and optimized.