What is Alt Tag | Importance of Alt Tag in Search Engines | Benefits of Alt Tag

ALT Tag used in HTML and XHTML, that provides alternative text when non-textual elements, typically images.

Alt Tag (alternative to image tag) can help, but it’s not going to be a major factor unless your site is made almost exclusively of images.

Alt Tag provides a search engine with a “translation” of the content of the image (a search engine can’t read the text in an image). Alt tag is presented in place of an image if the link to the image is broken or the visitor is using a text only browser. Alt tag in your web pages is a good design practice, regardless of how much it helps to improve your Search Engine Ranking.

In short, when you’re trying to create effective page content that will appeal to both human visitors and search engine spiders, you need to get the most out of every page element. One way to do this is to use ALT or TITLE attributes wherever you can.

In Definitions:

The alt attribute is used in HTML and XHTML documents to specify alternative text (alt text) that is to be rendered when the element to which it is applied cannot be rendered. In HTML 4.01, the attribute is required for the img and area tags. It is optional for the input tag and the deprecated applet tag.

Source: wikipedia.org

If you use images in your web pages, its good practice to include Alt Tag for every image that a visitor to your site will see. It can also help your Search Engine Rankings, particularly if the Alt Tag contains a keyword or two relevant to the topic of the web page of which it is a part.

Examples of Alt Tag:

<img alt=”Your Text Here”>

<area alt=” Your Text Here “>

<input alt=” Your Text Here “>

Or

<img src=”Wedding Cake.jpg” height=”200″ width=”200″ alt=”Wedding Cake”>

Benefits of Alt Tag:

- Alt Tag provides more detail for an image or the destination of a hyperlinked image.

- Alt Tag provides much needed information for people who surf the web with graphics turned off, and people who surf the web with text-only browsers.

-  Alt Tag enables and enhances access for people with various disabilities.

- This assist in navigation when a graphics-intensive site is being viewed over a slow connection, enabling site visitors to make navigation choices before graphics are fully rendered.

Alt Tag, Alt Text, On page optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO