u include images in your articles to get people to read your text. Well-chosen images also strengthen your message. You shouldn’t forget to give those images good alt attributes: alt tags and title tags strengthen the message towards search engine spiders and improve the accessibility of your website. In this post I’ll explain all about alt tags and title tags and why you should optimize those.
The term “alt tag” is a commonly used abbreviation of wha’ts actually an alt attribute on an img tag. Every time you have an image in your text, the alt tag should describe what’s on the image. Screen readers for the blind and visually impaired will read out this text and thus make your image accessible.
What are alt tags and title tags?
This is a complete HTML image tag:
<img src="image.jpg" alt="image description" title="image tooltip"/>
The alt and title attributes of an image are commonly referred to as alt tag or alt text and title tag even though they’re not technically tags. The alt text describes what’s on the image and the function of the image on the page. So if you have an image that’s used as a button to buy product X, the alt text would say: “button to buy product X”.
The alt tag is used by screen readers, the browsers used by blind and visually impaired people, to tell them what is on the image. The title attribute is shown as a tooltip when you hover over the element, so in case of an image button, the button could contain an extra call-to-action, like “Buy product X now for $19!”.
Each image should have an alt text. Not just for SEO purposes but also because blind and visually impaired people otherwise won’t know what the image is for. A title attribute is not required. It can be useful but in most cases, leaving it out shouldn’t be much of an issue.