Three Good Reasons To Use The ALT Attribute
By Linda Sevier
What is the ALT attribute? It is part of the HTML image tag. It is often mistakenly called the ATL tag and it is used to describe an image on a web page. It is often overlooked by web site designers that are not knowledgeable about organic search engine optimization. When I explain to my clients that it is important to use the ALT, they usually have either not heard of it or don't understand its importance.
The question when they find out that it is used as an image describer is "who cares?". Well, Google for one. Search engines cannot look at the images on your web site page but they can index your image descriptions. So, this makes it a good SEO practice. If you can adequately describe the image using keywords, that is even better. Do be careful not to keyword spam, however. So, if the search engines can't see the picture but do index the alt attribute why not just put keywords in whether or not they relate to the picture? Because there are a couple of other ways the alt attibute is used.
Have you ever wondered how you would surf the web if you couldn't see? There are browsers that assist people with visual challenges to surf the web using screen readers or refreshable braille displays. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to visit a site full of images without any description of what they represent? Remember a few years back when most web site pages (some still do!) had image buttons for navigation? Buttons without an ALT attribute were 'invisible' to visually challanged visitors. The federal government has issued guidelines for web designers under Section 508. For more information about these guidlines and making your web site compliant and therefore accessible to all visitors, visit http://www.section508.gov/ and http://www.usabilityfirst.com/intro/index.txl. Not only is it the right thing to do, it might improve your keyword ranking. That is a win-win.
Are there still more reasons to use the ALT? Yes, the primary purpose of this attribute is to describe and image that can't be rendered by the browser. Some web surfers choose to surf without images enabled. Either because of a slow internet connection or preference. The next time to visit a web site that takes a long time to load, look carefully at the page. If you see text where an image is trying to load, you are looking at an alt attribute. If it is linked to some information in the web site that you want to read, no need to wait for the huge image file to render. Simply click and be on your way. See, th ALT attribute is a good thing.
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