Text may once have been king of the internet, but no longer. A modern website must make use of a number of mediums in order to carry its message with elegance and subtlety. To that end, almost every website on the net contains at least one image.

Images have posed problems for some sites in regard to search engine optimisation. As a human, it’s easy to forget that search engines are almost blind. They can’t interpret image files in the same way as human site users and without special treatment crawl past them completely. This has posed a problem for some sites built in Flash over the years. It also causes problems for the average site when it comes to image-based content.

The answer is to provide con-’text’-uality for the Search Engines when images are used on your site. Placing image descriptions in various areas of code is a sure-fire way to inform the search engines what an image contains, or the message the image is meant to send. There are several places that can contain accurate descriptions of images:

File name: This is an oft-overlooked opportunity to inform the search engine spiders of what the file is all about. File names are also a great place to include keywords. Creating descriptive file names is important in terms of human users as well, as there are times users are able to see file names. Your file name should conform to other descriptions of the image, such as that used in the ALT text.

ALT text: ALT text appears when a mouse hovers over an image. This text is very useful in demonstrating to search engine spiders that the image description and what users see is the same thing. ALT text is also useful in case an image fails to load, as it sits in place of the image.

Title tags: Title tags are important for the whole of your site, and very handy for images. The title of an image can be different to the ALT text and file name, but it should still be short and to the point.

Images are a great way to anchor links from a user perspective. Many people are used to clicking on photos and buttons as a way of getting around. Psychologically, it is more like walking through a doorway or climbing through a window when entering a new page via an image. Image-based links are less helpful in terms of SEO, as there is no text-based reference for the link. When linking through images, it is important to include anchor text when you can. This provides a solid reference for the search engines in their treatment of the linked page.

Descriptions of images can sometimes cause difficulties with the search engines, as the text describing the image is not always visible to the site’s users. It can be helpful to consult an SEO expert when optimising a site that has a number of images. SEO Consult can provide tailored guidance about your site and search engine optimisation.

Get Involved