There are some things that I really wish I would have learned in my early days of blogging and one of them is how to improve blog traffic with alt text. Why, oh why did I not learn this -before- I wrote 635 blog posts?
Anyway, one great way to increase your blog's traffic and search engine optimization (SEO) is to tag all of your images with alt text. What is alt text? Glad you asked!
What is alt text?
Alt text is applied to an image when the image cannot be seen.
Some people call it alt tags, some call it alt text. Whatever you call it, alt text is basically a description of your image that allows people to easily find you when they look for images on google. People who use screen reading software need alt text to tell them what the pictures are.
What does alt text do to help you?
If you're looking for a photo of Salem North Star china on Google, Google won't find my photo if I name it "img00378" but if I use alt text "vintage Salem North Star dish collection", this photo, from my post on My Mid Century China Cabinet has a chance of showing up in your search. You might even decide to click it, find my blog and become a regular reader.
Even if people don't stick around to read all of your posts, you're still increasing those page views, which is a good thing. If they don't subscribe, they may still pin your image to Pinterest or share on another social network.
Get credit to your work
If you use alt text on an image, that text is filled in when someone pins something to Pinterest. We Pinterest users are generally lazy and we don't bother to change much of the alt text. This is especially important for artists and photographers out there. Add your name to your work and hopefully, that will help your work to be easily credited when shared by others. In this example, I might add "via Va-Voom Vintage"
How to add alt text to your images
Adding alt text is very quick and easy. You can add it to posts as you write them and you can go back through old posts (like I'm doing to all of mine) and add alt text to old pictures. Remember, those old posts still bring in traffic and readers if they can find you in a search engine so that old content is worth gold!
Alt Text Cautions
* When using alt text, be careful to not cram a bunch of keywords in. It's ok to use a keyword if it pertains to the image but Google will pick up on excessive use of keywords and can hurt your blog's SEO
* You don't need to use your blog's name in all of your photos. You can if you like, but it will take up valuable use of space that may be used more efficiently with other words. If you're posting an image of your art or something of that nature, always add your name and your website.
* Always use alt text! Even if you think it's not important. Any image should really have it.
Okay, back to the grind of adding alt text to old posts. It's going to take forever to finish but in the end, I think it'll be well worth the effort!
For more tips, check out my ecourse, Bloggerific: a Guide to a Beautiful, Successful Blog where I teach you everything I know about blogging!
Do you use alt text? If so, how has it worked for your traffic?
Yes, I started labeling my patterns and original photos, not sure if it picks up the alt text also, I had better go check, thanks for the tip, because I do like my images to show up in Google and I often go there in my research.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting this, I had no idea! Going to edit my photos now :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I didn't know this!
ReplyDeleteNever knew! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLiz
Thanks for a great post! :-)
ReplyDeleteThe other important reason to use alt-text is for people who are using screen readers - it means that when they encounter an image, they hear something meaningful rather than just a string of numbers. Which is especially important if you have any gallery/catalogue type pages where the images are used as links to other pages of your site.
I never thought about this. Such a great idea. Thanks for bringint it to my attention.
ReplyDeletehttp://dividingmoments.blogspot.com/
Thanks for this - I knew that such a thing as alt text existed but I didn't know what it was called or how to do it.
ReplyDeleteChippy
I just went through and alt-texted all my photos on the new blog. Now, for the older blog with ten zillion posts... *sigh*
ReplyDelete~Katie
Oh I had no idea!Good lesson learned here,thanks Brittany!
ReplyDeleteGreat tip! I probably would have never figured that out!
ReplyDeleteI have been doing this for quite some time. I had no idea that others didn't know about it, being that Im the newby at blogging. lol
ReplyDeleteThis is such a wonderful tip, dear Bunny, thank you for posting about it. I used to do this more often (especially on some other past and present sites I've run besides Chronically Vintage) and then unintentionally sort of forgot about, it's great to be reminded of this handy blog traffic building tool again.
ReplyDelete♥ Jessica
Ooooo, thanks so much for the tip. Thankfully I've only just started my blog so I only have 4 post to do this on. I'll let you know if it helps pick up more readers. Thanks!
ReplyDeletehttps://steamyseamstress.sqsp.com/
Thanks for the tip! I didn't know alt text even existed lol. I'm such a newbie *sigh*
ReplyDeleteI think I'll go through my posts now!
Thanks for this, it's not something I've ever used before so I am off to sort that out.
ReplyDeleteI wish you had told me three years ago, sweetie! Another thing to add to my everlasting to-do list, sigh. :) Thanks for a great tip, do continue sharing your gold. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, I had not heard of that before.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! As kind of a luddite I'm always glad to learn how to better use the tools I do have available. Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteGreat tip!!! Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDeleteFab tip! So smart!
ReplyDeleteOh, good idea!!!!
ReplyDeleteOh this is so helpful! I am just starting out and very much appreciate the tips, thank you!!
ReplyDeleteGreat tip! I will totally do this in the future!
ReplyDelete--Viola
So glad you posted about this--I'd never heard of it before but I can see how helpful it would be! I'm definitely going to do it from now on!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the tip! I had never heard of this. Hmm, might need go back and update some of my older posts...
ReplyDeletebrittany - thank you very much!
ReplyDeletei´m very new with my blog and never heard of this. now i have something to do on a rainy day.