Alt tags are the text that comes up when you hover over an image on a webpage.
They are important for various reasons. For those who have images switched off or use a text only browser, they display information about the image that is there. They are particularly important for those who cannot, for reasons of accessibility, see the webpage at all and therefore rely on the spoken word to interact with the web page and its contents.
It is important that any page that contains images has alt tags for those images as this ensures that the webpage is user 'friendly' and accessible to the widest possible audience. It is also important because it helps search engines know what your images are about and catalogue them correctly for relevant searches that are performed. There may even be some modest SEO benefits (many SEO practictioners believe they have some positive impact although relatively far down the list)
So what should the alt text say? It should be short and to the point, and accurately describe the image. Don't stuff it with keywords or information that is not related to the image; the golden rule is that if you did not or could not see the image for whatever reason, the alt text would enable you to know what the image was of.
So the key question to ask when you write your alt text is "would I know what the image is of if I only say this alt text?".
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Web Design |
