How long should the Image Alt Text be for SEO?
-
When it comes to creating the alternate text for images, what is the character length that I need stay under to rank well?
-
The images on your page should be relevant to your pages content, so describe them with an alt tag naturally will add relevance. The length is not important, but I would not stuff they will a long list of keywords.
-
This is just my feel for this after watching my own sites pull in thousands of visits per day from image search, but I have not done systematic study.... and Google could have changed even if I did systematic study.
First, I say that character count is irrelevant. What you need to focus on is the keywords you want to be visible for.
If you are optimizing for image search, I would use very specific keywords. The exact keywords that you want your image to rank for. AND, most important, the exact keywords that people will relate your image to. If you call it a duck and it ain't a duck, that blows the value of alt text. Google knows a little about this stuff, even if they make the news by messing up once in a while.
If you are optimzing for websearch, I would use the specific keywords for my webPAGE on the highest image in the code of the page. It is really important to give people an image that their query relates to. If your page is about ducks and you image is a weasel, they are going to leave.
After that, it I mix it up, keeping relevant to the image and relevant to the page.
-
There isn't really any limit, like there is for page titles, meta descriptions, etc. Typically you'll want the ALT text to explain what's in the image--the original purpose was to show the user what the image was before it was downloaded, and also for vision impaired folks, the screen readers would read to them what was in the image by reading the ALT text.
If you're looking for the image to reinforce the relevance of the page for the page's target topic, then make sure that the topic term is in the ALT text, usually as part of a long phrase or sentence. If you're looking for the image to rank well in Google image search, then I'd keep the ALT text to just what the target term is (and of course make sure the page title reflects that term as well).
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
-
Local Seo for Two Offices?
What is the best way to go about doing local seo for two offices? Everything I can research on local seo provides awesome information...if you have one office, but we have two: one is in downtown Tampa and the other in a northern suburb. Anyone have experience with this that they'd like to share? I'd appreciate it. Happy Friday! Ruben
Image & Video Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Confusion About Local SEO
Hi, I hope someone might be able to help me out with this. I am somewhat confused. Basically I have a site that has 2 operating bases in 2 neighboring counties. Say Hampshire and West Sussex. Now I understand the need for schema markup. However, where exactly to put this markup I cant see a definitive answer. even on the official googleblog they seem to shy away from answering this. For the moment I have placed it on the contact us page and obviously there are 2 sets of schema markups for the 2 addresses. Now, the bit I am confused about is that I was reading the Koozai Local SEO white paper and they mention to have the addresses in the footer. This is fine and I can do that, especially as there are a lot of sub pages on the site for different products which we would like to try and rank for. Now, this is the bit I am slightly confused on, should the addresses in the footer be the schema markups? I suspect not but I would like to be sure. Many Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | kirstyseo0 -
Repeated alt tags
So my client red about SEO and now he needs alt tags for each image on website. There is like 200 products and each product has 20 images, i know he will not write alt text for each and there isn't that much to write (them are selling bricks). So can all 20 images with in product page contain the same alt tag (product name)? Example: alt="red brick". Wount google ban website for that? Mybe better way would be alt="red brick 1", alt="red brick 2" and so on.
Image & Video Optimization | | regolv0 -
Local SEO: Specific pointers on how to improve my campaign
Hello, I changed my address midstream in my campaign, from spelling out "Suite H" to now it's #H. Wow, what a cleanup job. I'm in at least 3 dozen directories I've found, and it looks like there are more. I'm adding myself to all the main directories that yext lists here. I've also used whitespark for a couple of months. My site is here. The term I'm targeting is "Boise Weight Loss. I"m on page 3 and not in the local results. Could you guys give me some pointers on how to get up into the top 3 of the local results? I'm planning on cleaning up and adding directories. I don't know how many I'll need, and of course I am looking for pointers on the other factors (besides citations) as well. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Image Duplicates - Does Google Penalize on this?
Hi Mozzers, I have some doubts on the images hosted on my site. I have a single image on the website coming from 3 different locations. The locations are: img.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg img1.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg www.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg Now, these 3 are the same images with the same Title (they currently do not have an Alt Tag). Now, the 2 sub-domains when opened without any internal URL, redirects to the main domain. For instance, if I access img.mydomain.com it 301 redirects to www.mydomain.com but if I access img.mydomain.com/site/default/serivces.jpg I will get the image and it does not redirect. I have checked Google Image search and the full path on the sub-domain of the image is being indexed and crawled by Google Image bot. Now, this is true for both the sub-domains which act as CDN for the images. If Google does crawl all the locations which have the same image, does it cause a duplicate issue for it? I know that if it was content, I would be in trouble but does image also has the same implications. I am planning for image optimization and faced with this situation. Any answers? Cheers,
Image & Video Optimization | | RanjeetP0 -
H1 image
Hi, I was talking to a web consultant today that teaches SEO, he said that an image is ok as an h1 tag as long as it has an alt tag. This is something new to me and something that I've always tried to avoid. Does this now work? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | brightonseorob0 -
How come none of my images are being indexed by google.
None of my images are being indexed by google. Here is a link to one of my site gallery pages : http://www.mconcrete.com/gallery/stamped-concrete
Image & Video Optimization | | munoz04510 -
What is inside the SEO Training Videos?
Hi, I have read the book "art of seo", now I found that there is a SEO training videos " Ultimate Advanced SEO Bundle: Tips, Tricks & Tactics Volumes 1 & 2 URL: http://www.seomoz.org/store/4 What is the content inside? is it worth to buy even if I already read the book "art of seo"? please advise. Thanks -David
Image & Video Optimization | | David6800