engine rankings. What’s more, alt tags should be used for every image on your site (even if they have
no SEO value), because seeing what the image descriptions are helps those users who might have
difficulty loading your site.An example of an alt tag might be the description of a picture of the Mona Lisa on your web site.
Your alt tag, then, should look like this:Alt=”Mona Lisa”The alt tag usually falls at the end of the image tag. An image tag might look something like this:<img width=”100”
height=”100”
src=”monalisa.jpg”
alt=”Mona Lisa”>The image code breaks down like this:<img width=”100”: The width (in pixels) of the image.Height=”100”: The height (in pixels) of the image.Src=”monalisa.jpg”: The source of the image file.Alt=”Mona Lisa”>: The alternative text that’s displayed when the image is not.One more note about alt tags: To be really effective, these tags should be used for every single image
on your web site. That could become an arduous task if your site hasn’t been properly coded to start
with (and depending on the number of images that you have on your site). However, the addition of
these tags should be advantageous to your SEO efforts as long as you don’t overstep the unspoken
boundaries of alt tags.Alt tags in graphic links
To this point, you’ve heard that alternative text for graphics (or graphic links) should always be
included in your web pages. Now is where you find out the exceptions to that rule. Alternative text,
in the form of alt tags, is very useful in circumstances where visitors to your site are using text-only
browsers, when those visitors have graphic capabilities turned off on their browser, or when they
use screen readers to “read” your web pages to them. And that’s what makes alt tags so important.However, if your web site features a lot of repetitive images, it might be redundant for you to use
the same alt tag over and over again. What’s more, when you’re using graphics (like pictures and
clip art) as links, visitors will quickly tire of seeing alt=”hyperlink”. Unless the graphics used
on your page and in your links contain information that is vitally important to your web site, you
can usually use one instance of a descriptive alt tag, and then for each repetitive picture, use an
empty alt tag: alt=””.110
Part II SEO Strategies
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