keyword rich alt tags

I have a friend that i was doing my masters with, she decided to move onto part time to give her some more time for a dissertation, basically she is writing it on alt tags and why poeple use them and in what ways. Basically the websites she does focuses totally on accesibilty hence alt tags are useful for screen readers etc, you guys prob no more on it than me.
But basically with the seo i have done on some sites i have used alt tags more to help the keyword content on the site rather than focusing on the assesibility, obviously i do think about accesibility but it isnt my primary concern. I just wanted to ask is that what you guys do or do you look at using alt tags properly describing an image with SEO takign second place to it?

 

I can't see how stuffing your ALT tags with keywords is going to improve your rank, and it certainly won't help the user experience. Now if you can accurately describe the image while using a keyword, great. Otherwise, I would just use ALT tags for their intended purpose.

 

cheers, yeah when i started trying seo i would often try and describe something whilst doing my best to get a keyword in, in the end it would often make the description look bad. I have learnt not to do that now, i was just interested as i read somewhere that some webmasters would bung loads of keywords into the alt tag etc

 

Placing keywords in alt tags can help. I have seen my positions move up in MSN when I have done this. But I would not stuff them. Just place the keywords in them once.

 

ALT tags can definitely help the user experience. I can't tell you how many times I scroll over images to see more information. Lot of non-savvy website users use the ALT display for more information. You should add your sub-keywords into the image, in a non-spammy/stuffing form, that's informative for the user.

Also, adding the ALT tags helps in optimizing the image for image searches. Lots of traffic can be garnered through image searches.

 

Seems to have some effect on google image placement also.

sorry didn't refresh the page, didn't mean to echo you

 

what i do with mine...I describe the image first, and then in parenthesis I add my site name and something like "Site's Purpose Here" which usually adds a few extra keywords in there

 

Seems interesting I will give it a try..

 

That is what the title attribute is for. Internet Explorer once more proofs it stupidity by showing a tooltip for alt attributes. Alt attributes (alt tags do not exist) are for alternate content. If the picture is trivial such as a logo it's usually better to set the alt attribute as alt="".

If the logo is also a link back to the homepage you can place "homepage" in it for example.

Also a search engine has to be of very poor quality if it is mislead by keyword stuffing in alt attributes. A very crude form of cloaking, really.

 

Precisely.