Images in Wordpress
-
Wondering how best to utilize the tags for images in Wordpress.
I have these fields:
Title
Alternate Text
Caption
Description
Is it important that I fill all of these fields in? And for these fields - is it best to use hyphens or underscores for SEO?
Thanks.
-
Hey Justin - it's been a while since you posted your question. Did you get the answers you needed or can you give us further clarification of what you're still needing help with?
If you did get the answers you needed, could you mark as "Good Answers" whichever answers you found most helpful and mark the overall question as answered? This will help other users who may come across the question in the future.
Thanks!
Paul
-
Hi Justin,
Generally I use the rule if the keyword helps to describe the image then yes.
You can get away with putting in a keyword if it's not, but that might skew results in your web stats if people are finding that page wrongly.
Basically the bounce rate is taken into consideration, this is where someone goes to a page then leaves it very quickly, so they bounce off the page.
That counts against you, so you want to make sure that if they find that page with the image on it that it has relevant content to what they were searching for, so in your example Jacksonville-florist might be what they were looking for, but they see a surfboard and think oh that's not what I was looking for and bounce to find something more relevant to the search.
So be careful how you name files, sometimes it's best not to stuff a keyword in where it's not wanted or needed.
Also Paul is right hyphens should only really be used in the file name, but you will also want to use them in a URL.
Google treats Hyphens as spaces, but it also helps with browsers that there isn't a space in the url as they then replace a space with a horrible looking %20 which makes the URL harder to read as a human.
Hope that helps.
-
Justin, all four of these fields are PLAIN TEXT fields - meaning you just type their content as regular sentences. Do not separate words with hyphens or dashes - just use regular spaces. The one place you would use hyphens (not underscores) is in the image file name itself.
alt text
- a simple description of the image. You can use a keyword here, but only if it actually describes the image.
- has a small amount of SEO benefit, especially if you're trying to get your image to rank in Image Search
- do NOT add the site's main keyword to every image's alt text. That would imply you're trying to get all pages/images of the site to rank for the same main term, which is pointless.
Title
- again, an ordinary description of the image. The text entered here will show up as a tooltip when hovering over the image on the page. It's often the same as the alt text, or can also be used to give instructions or even a photo credit. Note that, in absence of an image title, some browsers will use the alt text for the tooltip, but not all.
- has no beneficial impact on SEO. Search engines do not use it as ranking factor.
Caption
- a WordPress-specific field. Your theme/templates can be formatted so that photo caption information entered here will be displayed as a caption beneath the photo.
- photo captions are useful for SEO as search engines consider that on-page text in close proximity to the image is likely related to the image.
Description
- another WordPress-specific field. This can be implemented in themes/templates to display in situation where an image description is beneficial - such as in you website's internal search results. It can also be used in the admin backend to identify images.
- typically no SEO benefit unless it is somehow implemented in public templates.
Paul
-
Thanks Alan. Is it wise to add our main keyword along with the title of the image?
For example:
surfboard-jacksonville-florist.jpg
Surfboard is the image name - and jacksonville florist is our main keyword.
-
Hi Justin,
Generally I fill out Title and Alternative text as the main fields the other two are used less often. Make sure that the content adequately describes the image and that the text surrounding it also is related. You'll also want to make sure your file name has the keywords too, but again is accurate to the image.
I would recommend using hyphens over underscores in pretty much anything to do with SEO especially with URLs.
one last thing try to focus on one keyword as stuffing in many can be counter productive.
hope that helps!
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
-
Images on Bing
I have uploaded images to our Mozlocal account and they are showing up on Google but when we go to Bing not all the images are showing up and there is a png image of our logo that is not on Google. Wondering why this is happening and if it is possible to be fixed?
Image & Video Optimization | | SCMarCom0 -
Separate images (.jpg) or background images (.css) for list pages?
Hi, We all know that you should optimize your images as much as possible. We're talking about filesize, filename, alt tag, etc.... If we take a look at large websites with large listpages (overview pages / categorypages) I wonder, what the best practice is regarding images. What is your view on listpages / overview pages?
Image & Video Optimization | | AdenaSEO
So, I'm talking about a page with 40 products in a certain category, or 25 holiday homes in a certain region. Is it negative / bad for SEO when using background images (which are loaded through CSS and optimizing the seperate elements is not possible) instead of using 'normal' optimized images (for example .jpg images wich do have optimized filenames, alt tags, etc..). Will it negatively impact listpages / overview pages?
What are your thoughts? Regards,
Tom0 -
Questions about optimization for Google Images
Hello all, I've got a few quick questions about optimization for Google Image search. Would be great if someone could help me out with these. Is it possible to track and seperate visitors that reach my website through the images presented in the SERP's? Should we avoid changing high ranking pictures on important keywords? If we need to change the pictures what would the best strategy be? Replace the original filename and alt tag of the picture? Keep the orignal pictures but change the location of the pictures to a new post on our website? Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | buiserik0 -
Image Gallery - Name of the image files
I would like to know If I have a image gallery in my website, what name must I put in the image files? Can I associate with the my key-word? Ex: Post about pizza buffet, and than... the images can have the name "pizza-buffet-01, pizza-buffet-02"? Is it wrong? Thank you
Image & Video Optimization | | otimizador20130 -
Text Images
I have created an infographic using easel.ly. I want to upload this to my blog but I'm just concerned whether Google will see it as an image or will it be able to read all the text that is on it. Any thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | AAttias0 -
Google Knowledge Graph - change bio image
I have a client who is a well known personality in a particular niche that I've done some general event and design work for, but he hasn't had interest in SEO or social help until this point. He is very displeased by the image that was chosen for his Google Knowledge Graph result when you search his name. The issue isn't due to a poor photo, but rather due to the site it links through to. Google has chosen to use a bio image for his Knowledge Graph result which links to an "anti-" site. This site is opposed to the organization he leads. If you click on the image, it sends you to an image result page backed by an article which is full of misinformation and overall negativity about this individual. The source is also listed under the image on the Knowledge Graph result, a source he doesn't believe deserves any publicity, especially in conjunction with his name. So, what best practices might you suggest should be employed to go about getting Google to choose a replacement image for his Knowledge Base bio? Optimize his own bio page and bio image on his website? Get an image on his Wikipedia page? Create a G+ page with the bio image? Integrate the rel author syntax into his articles pointing back to his bio page? He doesn't want this to become a public matter, so he's against posting the issue to Google's Help Boards or reporting it in a public fashion. I'm not sure what should be the best first steps and top priorities for him and am hoping the SEOmoz team is starting to see some trends with Knowledge Graph. Let me know your thoughts when you can. Thanks so much! iLqNW iLqNW.png
Image & Video Optimization | | windturbines2 -
What is the best way to internally link via images?
What is the best way to internally link via images? I have a website about shoes with all different brands. Let's say I'm trying to rank for "ABC sandals", and on the ABC page I have a "related brands" section with 4 logos of related sandal brands, linking to their respective page. Currently the alt text of the logos is "XYZ Logo" with the link title text "XYZ." Would it be beneficial to have change either the image alt text, or the link title text, or both to "XYZ sandals"?
Image & Video Optimization | | Hakkasan0 -
Image SEO - Does having multiple sites using same image help?
I'd assume that if many websites reference the same image on a server that this image would rank higher in image results than a similar image that is only used on 1 website.I have yet to do any testing with this to be certain, but how important does this factor seem to be in regards to image SEO?
Image & Video Optimization | | art-boy0