Examples of Great Alt Text

Today I received an email from windows dot com. As I didn't have Thunderbird set up to show remote content in their emails I was able to see the alt text for each of the images in the email. These are some examples of great alt text and their associated images:


1. A father and two daughters sit on a sofa looking at a tablet together.


2. A woman using a mobile phone and sitting by a window.

3. A woman holding a jacket and a mobile phone with an open laptop on a desk in the background.

The alt text for each of these images describes the image so that it makes sense for someone who does not see the actual image. This is what you should be striving for when you write the alt text for your own images.

When you're sending emails to your subscribers, as well as when you're including images in your articles, you'll want to provide great alt text.

Give your readers a great user experience and the search engines will reward you with higher rankings.

One more thing, my friend Loes, reminded me that every image gets its own URL so most of the time we should rename our images before uploading. "Sonycam643267544643 in your URL looks not nice, https://yourupload.com/sunsetinarizona is much nicer." Thank you, Loes.


Are you using alt text according to these principles?

Please add your comments, observations and questions to the conversation below.

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kevin928 Premium
Thank you for this Marion, I'm not sure if I have been giving my pictures sensible names. Can I just confirm its the title and the alt text that we fill in (unless we want a caption) I maybe have been trying to be to clever by adding something to do with the article title in the naming. Also is it in the title section that we separate with hyphens? If I want to amend the titles do I have to go to each post because when I click on edit I don't seem to get the full list of options that I do in Media, so the other question can I amend in media.

To give you an example in an article about healthy vegan food I have a picture of blueberries and have titled it healthy vegan blueberries. Will Google not like this?

Sorry for so many questions and thank you in advance for any response

Kevin
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MarionBlack Premium
"Healthy vegan blueberries" is the perfect title and alt text for an image of healthy vegan blueberries. It's also ideal for the caption if you want to use a caption.

You don't need to add hyphens for the alt text or the title or the caption. Hyphens are only used for the image's URL and they are automatically added by WordPress.
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kevin928 Premium
Thanks Marion, I didn't know if I was trying to be to clever by adding Vegan to the title as most of the images on my post I added it. Thanks for the heads up re hyphens, should I remove those I have added? Also while I am chatting, I am just finishing an article that 3 or 4 quotations about nutrition from famous people. These are easily found online and I wondered what level of quotations Google would start to see as plagiarism, any ideas? I promise thats the last question for today. And as always thanks so much for your help and your tutorials.

Kevin
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MarionBlack Premium
Adding vegan to the title or alt text is fine when it's helpful to your readers.

Keyword stuffing is not OK. e.g. "healthy vegan blueberres, vegan berries, vegan fruit, healthy berries, healthy fruit, healthy blueberries for vegans" Keyword stuffing can get your article google-slapped.

It's up to you whether you want to go back to your existing articles to remove the hyphens. They're probably not doing any harm, it's just that they are a bit awkward and not necessary.

Properly attributed quotations are fine, Kevin. The search engines expect them to be duplicate content. Just write a lot of unique stuff too.
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kevin928 Premium
Thanks Marion, lots of unique stuff. No not been keyword stuffing, just the single vegan along with a basic picture description. Same in the text.

Thanks as always, hopefully in the future the help will be reciprocal

Kevin
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Mubs1 Premium
This topic always confuses me simply because alot of people advocate putting keywords in the alt text. Nearly all my images contain the keyword i'm trying to rank for.

So far i have not noticed any negative effects but i will do what you said and write descriptive alt texts and see what happens.

thanks
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MarionBlack Premium
Hopefully that will help with your SEO results
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AlenkaV Premium
Dear Marion

Thank you for this great tutorial.

I use alt descriptions as you have indicated. Not only does it help with rankings, but more importantly, it makes me feel like I'm doing the decent thing of being fair to people who need to use the internet in a different way.

Best,
Alenka
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MarionBlack Premium
I like your style, Alenka.
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AlenkaV Premium
I'll take that as a huge compliment, if I may. Thank you!

:)
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jetrbby80316 Premium
I use ALT text as descriptions for all my images,and it definitely helps ranking those images in the SERPs. All too often ALT text is ignored, and it should not be.

Great training Marion, and bookmarked:)
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MarionBlack Premium
Thanks Kaju.
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laparra1 Premium
Good Morning Marion,

I realize I should make my Alt descriptions a little more detailed.
Do you think I should redo all the photos of old posts or just leave them as they are?

Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
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MarionBlack Premium
I would redo them if they are stuffed with keywords.
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laparra1 Premium
Good Morning Marion,

I do not think that is the case, it is more:
A basket full of fruits and vegetables or a basket full of fruit and vegetables, carrots, peppers, apple, peaches etc. Which of these 2 would be better?

Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske
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MarionBlack Premium
I think that "a basket full of fruits and vegetables" would be sufficient, Taetske. There's no need to go overboard with the alt text description.
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laparra1 Premium
Thank you Marion,

I think that with most of my Alt text I am on the safe side. When I update posts I will have a look to be sure.

Have a nice weekend, Taetske
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