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Make Use of Your HTML Attributes
Friday, June 22, 2007
If you aren't using the alt attribute with all of your images already, you need to stop and ask yourself why. Alt, or alternative text defined as an attribute of the image tag, has been a requirement to meet accessibility standards for as long as there have been accessibility standards. SEO often goes hand in hand with accessibility and nine times out of ten something that's good for accessibility is good for SEO. Using alt text with images is no exception.
Just to clarify things for anyone that doesn't already know, the alt attribute is used to display some text when the picture they are associated with fails to load for some reason. Reorganizing your web site's directory structure is a prime candidate for causing this. It's also used to display some text when the picture is not loaded at all, such as when viewed with a text-only browser or screen reader (hence the accessibility requirement).
As for the actual text content making up the alt attribute, this should primarily be something that adequately describes the picture, but should also, where possible, include the keywords for which you are optimizing your page or site. This will raise the keyword density of the page slightly, but provided you aren't totally squeezing every keyword possible into the page content already, this shouldn't go against you. I don't need to tell you not to use alt text as a poorly disguised vehicle for keyword spamming.
Another attribute that can be put to good use here is the title text. This is the attribute that makes a little tool-tip appear when the mouse pointer hovers over an image. It is sometimes confused with the alt attribute, but unlike the alt text, it can be used with many other elements, not just images. This is another place where a strategically placed keyword will help you. Like the alt attribute, its textual content should be relevant and descriptive.
One final attribute you can make use of for SEO purposes is the longdesc attribute. This complements the shorter alternative text with a longer description in a separate file. The content of the longdesc attribute is normally in the form of a URL, which links to the page containing the long description. This is one more place for you to insert a keyword if appropriate (and the page it links to is obviously prime real estate for plenty more!)
Because these attributes are primarily used within the accessibility framework that exists to make the Internet a better experience for people with low-vision, blindness or other disabilities, the use of keywords should take a back seat to relevant and informative text. Use them to enhance your SEO where possible, but don't use them at the expense of accessibility and definitely don't overuse them.
Just to clarify things for anyone that doesn't already know, the alt attribute is used to display some text when the picture they are associated with fails to load for some reason. Reorganizing your web site's directory structure is a prime candidate for causing this. It's also used to display some text when the picture is not loaded at all, such as when viewed with a text-only browser or screen reader (hence the accessibility requirement).
As for the actual text content making up the alt attribute, this should primarily be something that adequately describes the picture, but should also, where possible, include the keywords for which you are optimizing your page or site. This will raise the keyword density of the page slightly, but provided you aren't totally squeezing every keyword possible into the page content already, this shouldn't go against you. I don't need to tell you not to use alt text as a poorly disguised vehicle for keyword spamming.
Another attribute that can be put to good use here is the title text. This is the attribute that makes a little tool-tip appear when the mouse pointer hovers over an image. It is sometimes confused with the alt attribute, but unlike the alt text, it can be used with many other elements, not just images. This is another place where a strategically placed keyword will help you. Like the alt attribute, its textual content should be relevant and descriptive.
One final attribute you can make use of for SEO purposes is the longdesc attribute. This complements the shorter alternative text with a longer description in a separate file. The content of the longdesc attribute is normally in the form of a URL, which links to the page containing the long description. This is one more place for you to insert a keyword if appropriate (and the page it links to is obviously prime real estate for plenty more!)
Because these attributes are primarily used within the accessibility framework that exists to make the Internet a better experience for people with low-vision, blindness or other disabilities, the use of keywords should take a back seat to relevant and informative text. Use them to enhance your SEO where possible, but don't use them at the expense of accessibility and definitely don't overuse them.
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