Take Advantage of Alt Tags for Better Page Rank

Take advantage of alt tags for better page rank on your photography business or any other business website with this guide to how to use alt tags for your photos.

What are Alt Tags

Alt tags are how search engines and screen readers understand what your content is. If someone has vision problems they may use a screen reader to tell them what a web pages says. If your page has images then it should have alt tags to tell that reader what the image is.

Of course, screen readers are only one user of alt tags. Search engines also use them. As a result, not adding alt tags to your photos means that the search engines can't understand what they are either.

Why Photographers Should Care About Alt Tags

If you're a photographer then chances are high that you're showing your work on your website. While image searches are not a great source of revenue themselves they can boost your overall page rank.

Page Rank For Photographers

As photographers you might land a large amount of clients via word-of-mouth. However, if you want clients to find you via your website you need to think about where your site shows up in search results. Page rank is how high up the results your website is shown. Without using alt tags your unlikely to rank high. That said, using alt tags alone isn't enough. Too, ranking high for search terms that are not popular is easy but it's not very effective.

Beyond Your Website

In addition to your website if you're work is on clients websites then be sure to take advantage of their alt tags. In fact, one way that you can ensure your work is attributed to you is to ask that your clients add information about you to the photos alt tags. Of course ideally they'd give you a link back to your website. However, this isn't always practical. Therefore, I find that clients are far more open to adding my business name to their alt tags. Of course, you've got to get their web folks to actually do it. That said, it's often not too difficult to connect directly with them and ask them to do so. This is especially true if you put it in your contract.

How To Add Alt Tags To Images

Any image that you're embedding into your website can have an alt tag. That said, some are easier to add than others. For example, background images in some website management tools are hard to add alt tags to.

Adding Alt Tags in WordPress

WordPress is the most popular website management program. Therefore I'll use it as the example of how and where to add alt tags to your images.

Add an image in WordPress as you normally do. When you do the option to add the alt tag is on the right side of the image library pop-up. As you can see in the image, it's just below the thumbnail of the image you've selected.

WordPress Editors

WordPress has a variety of add-on editors. These include, Elementor and Cornerstone just to name a few. When adding alt tags in these editors you might need to search for the place to add them. For Cornerstone it's just under the image selection box. In fact, this is true not only for embedded images but also for background images.

Alt Tags Describe Your Image

The purpose of alt tags is to describe your image. As such it's important that you use them to do so. However, you can also add additional information assuming it's related. For example, I typically add photo of x showing y by Don Orkoskey or from WDO Photography. In addition since I'm a photographer in Pittsburgh I also add Pittsburgh whenever reasonable.

Ultimately, you need to use alt tags to tell those who can't see your image what it is. Of course, don't let that stop you from also using them to increase traffic coming to your website.

Alt Tags for Photographers

At the end of the day, if you're a photographer or any other business owner you need to take advantage of alt tags. So, if you're a photographer who is struggling with how and or why to use them I hope this guide helped. Of course, if you still have questions please feel free to reach out. After all, I'm happy to help you understand how to follow best practices when it comes to alt tags and other issues around web design for photographers.

Don Orkoskey  | July 21, 2024
I'm full time professional event and portrait photographer Don Orkoskey. Since 2007 I've owned WDO Photography. Additionally, I teach photography in partnership with a number of amazing organizations in and around Pittsburgh as well as offering my own group photography classes and individual photography lessons. I teach classes for both adults and children and lead free nature photography meetups each month. I also write a monthly newsletter full of great information and maintain a list of free photography resources to help you learn photography.