Using Alt Tags & Descriptions for your Images (and why)
WHY YOU NEED IT
Number 1 answer: SEO. Next, when you share your content (or visitors share), you’re going to add a little touch of professionalism.
Sadly, this important task gets skipped over A LOT.
Here’s what we’re talking about…
LOOK FAMILIAR?
Let’s use this post as an example. If I go to share this post on Pinterest, here’s what the I see. Notice all of the text already added? Plus ways for people to find us like our url, name, etc.?
The bonus is that this information is all indexed by Google! Meaning, more of your info is out on the interwebs, Google sees that it’s helpful information and thanks you by eventually giving you a tiny SEO gold star on your report card.
HOW TO DO IT
There are several ways do this. You can add this information when you add a new image to your media library or when you click the “Add Media” button from your page/post editor. →
From the Media Gallery, click the image you want. Let’s set the Featured Image for this post as an example:
When we choose the image we want, you can see the Title, Alt and Description fields are blank or have weird stuff.
Now it’s time to fix this: Create a short but informative description of what the image is about and add it to your Title, Alt Text and Description fields. (Because, it’s not 100% guaranteed that only the Alt field will be shared – adding to all 3 fields will make sure you’re covered!) Don’t forget to add your website info or other details about your business too. Leave the Caption field blank unless it’s already been styled properly. (Adding a Caption will add a box around your image on your page and add the text below the image.)
Bonus, when you add your image within the content of your page or post (not the featured image), WordPress auto-adds the image’s Alt Text, etc. into your html! Meaning, when your page or post is shared (like on Pinterest), visitors will have some nice, informative info on any image that’s shared!
THAT’S IT! EASY! By remembering to edit/add your Title, Alt Text and Description each time you add a new image to your website, you’re going make things easy on people who want to share your content, add a little organic SEO and look like a pro!
What the heck?! I think I’ve been doing this wrong for so long. haha. Thanks for all the tips!!! Pinterest can be so tricky.
So glad it helped!
This is beyond helpful! I want to start posting photos on Pinterest and I will definitely come back to this post to jump start my SEO ??
Thank you and so glad it’ll help you! This is just some of the stuff no one tells you about. We try and fix that. 🙂
Yes to alt text! I recently was educated on the necessity of the alt text. So now I’m taking a little bit of time each day to go back through my website and add proper alt text to all my images. I wish I had known about this earlier!
Well, it’s never too late. Good for you for doing that!
Thank you! This was very informative!
You’re very welcome McKensie! Glad it helped!