Alt text / internal linking
-
Hi everyone
A question about best practice when linking from pictures on our homepage - hirespace.com
We have an option of using divs with background images (nicer in terms of design) but it means that we can't use anchor text or alt text to show Google what these internal links are about.
The other option is to use images which do not allow us as much flexibility in terms of CSS but would allow us to use alt text.
There is also an opinion that we should have separate text links at the bottom of the homepage to get the anchor page in.
What is best practice in this situation - is alt text worth sacrificing some CSS flexibility for? How important is anchor/alt text for internal linking?
Thanks guys.
-
Thanks so much for the responses. Agree that usability is most important. It's something we have always stuck to. Just want to make the most of internal links. But this is very helpful. Appreciated.
-
You also need to factor in extra load times using images as opposed to a CSS-initiated background. Although it is important to have anchor text for images on your site, I dont think that you should go out of your way to purposely make the site less usable in exchange for a negligible amount of rank increase. After all, it doesn't matter how well you rank if it doesnt create conversions for you due to slow load times, incompatibilities, etc. I generally like to tell my clients to keep the end-user in mind first, as implementing this type of mindset will usually automatically help you with SEO (quicker load times, better quality content, etc). Just make sure to use alt/anchors for the actual images on your site, and you'll be good. I'd definitely recommend using CSS over hard-coding a bg image. It's better practice, and will decrease load times on all your pages.
-
Very good question. Lets think for one minute that Google and SEO doesn't exist - which option would you go for, I would personally say the first option as they offer a better user experience.
From an SEO point of view having anchor text help to tell the search engine what your page is about is still very useful, especially if there are not many pages around linking to them pages.
If you feel the pages can rank well without the anchor text, have good PA, rank naturally currently I would go with option 1, but if the site is new, or the pages aren't easily discovered in SERPs option 2 has to be the best option.
Sorry I can't be more helpful without knowing the URL you are talking about.
Some good advice can be found here:
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Moz bar not working on https://www.fitness-china.com/gym-equipment-names-pictures-prices
Moz bar not working on our website about gym equipment names https://www.fitness-china.com/gym-equipment-names-pictures-prices How long fix it?
On-Page Optimization | | ahislop5740 -
Number of internal links and passing 'link juice' down to key pages.
Howdy Moz friends. I've just been checking out this post on Moz from 2011 and wanted to know how relevant it is today? I'm particularly interested in a number of links we have on our HP potentially harming important landing page rankings because not enough 'link juice is getting to them i.e) are they are being diluted by all the many other links on the page? (deeper pages, faqs, etc etc) It seems strange to me that as Google as has got more sophisticated this would still be that relevant (thus the reason for posting). Anyway, I thought I was definitely worth asking. If we can leverage more out of our on-page efforts then great 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
Moving/deleting blog
I have a website with a blog attached to it. It is a wordpress blog which we have not updated since 2013. However, it has a lot of pages going back to 2010. I am moving my website to weebly so I can't move my blog over. I could recreate all the posts and make redirects to the new url. However, the posts are old and outdated so it doesn't really make sense, aside from seo. I need advice. Would I take an seo hit if i start over with a blog and leave the old posts behind? Thanks!!!
On-Page Optimization | | bhsiao0 -
Too many links on product pages
Hello, What do you do if there are too many links on product pages? With 18 products per page, there's 2 links per product for 120 links on many pages. There's 50 products in many categories, categories are at most 1 click from the home page. Should we use pagination or not? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
No links or traffic to our articles
Hello, Our articles are written by a professional in the field, taylored to what we think our ecommerce customers would most want to know about. But there is no traffic to our articles and almost no inbound links. We have 15 articles around 500 words (roughly) each. We've got a right sidebar banner about our FAQ and articles and a rotating banner with one slde about our articles. Also, we have a tab at the top. We've had a good article section for 5 months, and a descent one for a couple of years Could it be our industry, or what can we do?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Is this type of Internal Linking Bad or Good for my Site????
A while back we were schooled on "Link Silos" a reputable SEO source.... and one suggestion was to create links from our product pages (bottom of link silo), back up to it's higher category page. So for example... Home > Tools > Hair Dryers > "Product" On the subject product... we chose to link back to "Hair Dryers" and then "Andis" (that product's brand page. You can see this at the below product page. We added the links below "Related Categories" in the product description. http://www.beautystoponline.com/Andis-Colorwaves-Tourmaline-Hair-Dryer-Blue-Green-p/an1dry0295.htm We are now thinking this may be just too much as there is already a "bread crumb" trail at the top of the product page. These are in essence links back up to higher categories. Any input on these types of links would be appreciated.. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BeautyStop1 -
Recommended SEO company/expert
It's as simple as the title. We're a well established ecommerce company about to move away from the actinic platform on to a new magento site. Of late our long held rankings have slipped and we are looking for guidance in making up the lost ground and getting the most SEO wise from magento. Thanks is advance.
On-Page Optimization | | LadyApollo0 -
Is anchor text link juice passed in internal links?
Let's say I have www.bobswidgets.com. If I have "widgets for sale in tuscon arizona' be the anchor text on an internal link on www.bobswidgets.com/page1 which goes to www.bobswidgets.com/page2 - does the value of the anchor text (widgets for sale in tuscon arizona) get passed internally? External links pass the value of the anchor text but do internal links?
On-Page Optimization | | qlkasdjfw0