Top Internet Marketing Secret Tip #7 for Businesses is Alt Text Tags
The Alt Tag attribute was originally used in HTML documents to specify alternative text (alt text) that is to be displayed when the image was not available. Most browsers would also display the text in the image place on the page while the browser was downloading the image, which was more visible with slower dial up internet connections. Search engines now use this text to identify the intended content of the image in their algorithms when they calculate the relevance of the content on the web page. The raw HTL information looks like this:
<img alt=”Custom Printed Beach Towels” src=”http://corporategiftpromotions.com/navimage2/Custom_Printed_Beach_Towels.jpg” width=”482″ height=”296″ />
The Alt Tag keyword text is one of the important points to consider in getting a web page ranked in on the internet. The text in the alt tag of an image on the web page is one of the items that search engines consider for relevance of a web site or web page and will help determine the ranking that the page will receive by the search engines. The alt tag text is also displayed on the image if the mouse hovers over the image without clicking in most browsers, like Internet Explorer and Firefox. The alt tag text should contain the primary keyword phrase the web page is attempting to be ranked on.
It is also highly recommended that the linked image also be named using the primary keyword search phrased attempting to be ranked: Beach_Towel.jpg verses 123image.jpg.
Alt tag keyword text phrases are weighted (ranked) highly in search engine algorithms, because the text is usually relevant to the landing page. The search engines generally attempt to provide relevant search results for consumers and in most cases consider the alt tag text words and phrases relevant content for the page.
Alt tag text should give the consumer and the search engines relevant and contextual information about the content of the image and match the overall search phrase theme for the web page.
It is also recommended that the other supporting HTML image alt tag text be used in the page and reflect the title primary alt tag keyword phrase in some manner. It is important not to
“exactly” duplicate the main alt tag keyword phrase than once in the page, in order to avoid becoming flagged as “keyword stuffing”, and use variations of the alt tag reflecting other secondary keyword phrases on additional images on the page to be ranked instead.
Alt text tags, when used properly and in the combination with other SEO web page techniques can help generate high results in search engine results pages.