I've read that ALT tags on your graphics can help SEO. So, here's the question-- should I label the ALT tags with keywords, even if the graphic itself has nothing to do with the keywords. For example, let's say I have a website from which I sell toys for cats. And I've got a picture of a credit card logo on that site. Should I make an alt tag for the credit card card graphic that says, "Credit Card".... Should I label the credit card logo alt tag with the words, "Cat toys"? Also-- Should I use the same keyword on all the graphics... or should I have different alt tag keywords? Just wondering..... Thank you.
Name it as it's should be, it will be better eventually. Also if imagebot properly indexes your images you can receive some traffic from image search too.
much better if it is related.. Leo is right. Proper using of alt tags would somehow boost your traffic...
When you search for a cat image on Google and a credit card image pops up, will you click it? I hope this answers your question. However, seeding the alt and title tags of images can boost the keyword density of a page.
Well the alt tag should describe the image as well as it should help blinds to be able to have a clue what the image is, so in your case either of your examples would really make sense, rather place alt tag as "Buy Cat Toys with Credit Card" just to give you an idea.
Alt tags are used for usability issues. So labeling "Cat Toys" is one option, but "Image Of Cat Toys" is what i would do. I always think usability before SEO, with that said, lets say a blind visits your site and there screen reader reads the alt text "cat toys".....they are not going to know it is an image.
Folks, alt="" is an attribute of the img element, not a tag. Technically, tags don't even exist in HTML, except when you're talking about the markup used to contain the elements (and the attributes/values they contain). http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/altAttribute
I like the "cat toys" myself. If I had many images on my page and already had alt="cat toys" frequently, I'd probably name it "pet toys" to avoid over optimization and hopefully, help rank for that word too. Unless I hoped people wanted to do an image search for "credit card" and wanted to score some traffic, than I would use the "credit card" term. And, while on the subject, I would also remane creditcard.jpg to cattoy.jpg even though it is a credit card picture. I have seen several sites do this with much success. It's definatly up to you though.
Wow... lots of differing opinions on this... I appreciate all the feedback and ideas..... Keem 'em coming.... 'cause I'm more confused than ever about what to do.
The answers thus far are pretty much right on track. The one thing I would as is that spamming the alt attribute can be perceived the same as any other spam. Keep it reasonable or be willing to suffer the consequences!
Think about how people search for images. Using Google image search for example, people likely will not search for "image of x" they will just search for "x". With that in mind, you will give users a better image search experience by labeling the image what it really is. Just like in SEO, you can get keyword volumes for similar keywords that reference your image and then of course use the keywords that get the higher search volumes in your ALT tags to describe your images.
I agree with most of the rest...it's not like it's going to give you a huge boost, but practicing proper SEO of image alt tags may just give you the boost you need to overcome your direct competitors. DO NOT SPAM or try to trick anyone, including search engines, ever! It will only end up hurting you!