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Using Alt And Title Tags For Images And Links
And you thought creating effective and optimized page content was that easy? Well! It is, if you are able to understand the importance of different ‘on page’ elements like the ALT and Title tags in images as well as links. The ALT and Title tags are great enhancments to SEO, and they appeal to search engine spiders as well as website visitors (Yay! Both Spider and Human friendly!). Remember, ALT and Title attributes have the ability to increase the usability level of your website (Especially for ADA enabled sites). So where does that really leave us? At the starting point where you need to understand where to place the attributes, when to use them and most importantly why use them in the first place.
The Purpose of ALT and Title tags
The ALT attribute has been specifically designed to act as the text description where images are concerned. When you browse on the web, you will find that on several websites, some text will be displayed before the image gets loaded; this is the ALT tag. It will show up in all the major or top browsers. In text-specific browsers like Lynx, instead of the image, people will get to see the ALT tag/text.
On the other hand, the Title attribute can be used for any type of page element even though it is not a mandatory requirement for all page elements. You can use the Title attribute for describing tables, links, individual rows in a table, and even some of the other structural elements in HTML. A comparison will reveal that the Title attribute is much more versatile vis-à-vis the ALT attribute and there are several search engines whose ranking algorithms consider the text mentioned within a Title attribute as standard page content.
There are quite a few benefits of both ALT and Title attributes and here are some of them:
1. They play an important role in enhancing the browsing experience of all visitors and especially those who have disabilities
2. Using ALT and Title attributes, you will be able to not only increase the keyword density score of your web page but also the overall relevancy for each and every targeted keyword used on your web page.
3. One of the important aspects of the ALT and Title tags is that they offer valuable information to a visitor by displaying descriptive text and link titles regarding different page elements.
Some people think that adding the ALT and Title attributes to a webpage might be difficult but that is not the case. In fact, it is quite easy and simple to add the ALT and Title attributes to the existing code. Here are some examples that will help you to understand how they can be added to an HTML tag.
{<img src=”trekking.jpg” width=”500″ height=”300″ alt=”trekkers walking towards Lapah at 12000feet”/>
<table width=”100″ border=”2″ title=”summer camp 2008 in Himalayas”>
<a href=”page1.html” title=”summer camp 2008″>summer camp 2008 in Himalayas</a>>
<form name=”application” title=”summer camp 2008 application” method=” ” action=” “>
</body>}
Here is how it looks:
To know how best you can use ALT and Title tags, check out the various features of the SEOiQ Testing Center. Take advantage of the 14-day free trial by signing up now!
By Jeremy Hermanns | September 11, 2008 | Filed Under SEO Advice
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