How do YOU use the ALT Tag for SEO? And: has any of your sites ever been penalized for stacking up keywords in the ALT Tag?
I normally tag it along with all my images. I also try to keep the description short and relevant to avoid diluting the tag itself.
TO be honest, ALT Tag was really important before, especially with Google rankings. But then again, a lot of people started with keyword stuffing, so those tags are not that that important any more. But there is no harm of adding them, just don't stuff them with keywords. One is more then enough. Beside from Alt Tags you should also consider adding comment tags: <-- comment--> again, Don't over due it.
You should use the ALT attribute keeping in mind the people who cant actually see the image but see the text of the ALT attribute. If you have a stack of keywords in your ALT attribute's its going to look complete crap to anyone that is using either a text only browser or if the image does not download. Keep them short and sweet and dont over stuff them as Anghus suggested, one key phrase is enough.
Alt Tags helps for google image search. Alt tags relate also about accessibility content, if the picture is missing your web client browser will use the alt tag text! Seriously it helps a bit to use keywords in those pictures (sometime google put the alt text of those pictures as part as the description of your listing on google SERPs) but don't spam it.
I wrote up a small SEO tips article, feel free to take a look at it. the article touches on this topic a bit. http://www.ginside.com/2006/383/seo-tips-image-naming/
Thank you everybody for your input. - Do you thing there's a 'golden rule' for the number of time you can use a keyword in the ALT Tags (no more than one?) and do you think they will be ADDED up per page?
Hi there, Just keep it simple. Let say your targeting keyword is: buy Nokia N93 In your alt tag, use: Buy Nokia N93. Thats it, don't do like this: Buy, Nokia N93, Cheap Nokia N93, New Nokia N93.... etc...