Make Your Images SEO Friendly

The alt attribute and the title attribute play a vital role in  the search engine optimization of images. Both attributes make it easier for the user to locate what they really want. The alt attribute informs the search engines whats in the picture. The more descriptive the alt attribute the more helpful it is to Search engines when returning graphic search results.

The title that Google cares about the most is the file name. If there is no alt attribute and Google cannot use the text around the image to determine the subject of the picture it relies on the name of the file to determine topic. So when you save your graphics give them meaningful file names. 

However, that does not imply that you ought not include a meaningful title attribute. The 
title attribute can be really useful to your website visitors. The title attribute is displayed if the user moves over the picture. 

While I am talking about benefits to your website visitors permit me to also mention that the alt tag is also utilized by screen readers. Using the alt tag makes your website open to a lot more people and helps your website comply with standards and accessibility guidelines. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are geared towards making all online content available to individuals with disabilities.

When you insert an image in a post from within the WordPress admin area it adds the image tag into your post. The easiest way to determine if you have teh attribute is to click on the tab for the HTML view.  If you do not have an alt attribute set the image tag looks like 

‹img style="float: left;" src="http://mywebsite.com/jreed_target.jpg" alt="" ⁄›

Notice that WordPress adds the alt attribute but it does not have a value.

Given that I have told you why you must use the alt attribute and the title attribute let me 
show you how to set the alt attribute and the title attribute in your WordPress Website. You can set the alt attribute and title attribute if you add an image to the WordPress Media library. Simply add a meaningful title and descriptive alternate text. Then you can save your photograph and continue your post just like you might typically.

You can add a alternate description from the HTML view or by clicking on the image and adding a 4 to 6 word description of the picture in the Alternate Text field.

Once you add the alternate text it will look something like

‹img style="float: left;" src="http://mywebsite.com/jreed_target.jpg" alt="J Reed At The Beach" ⁄›

in the HTML view.

If you have a large amount of photographs on your WordPress website which don’t have an alt attribute or perhaps a meaningful title you don’t need to go and fix each and every image one at a time. You can install a WordPress plug-in called SEO Friendly Images. You can decide if you want your attribute to become the title of the 
image, the name of the file, the category of your post, or the tags associated with the post.  You can then determine if you want to override the ALT attribute and/or Title attribute supplied by WordPress. Update the options and instantly you've got SEO friendly images.