• Search Engine Guide, Monday, July 7, 2008 2:01 PM

Stoney deGeyter delves into the ins and outs of image alt tags, explaining why they're important and offering an example of image alt tag rehab for a specific site.

"Almost universally, you should be using ALT text to describe each of your images," deGeyter says. "I say 'almost' because if you are still using clear images for formatting, styling, or spacing (you shouldn't be!) then those images don't need any description. As a side note, if you want your HTML to validate properly then every image needs an ALT attribute, even if it's left empty."

Sometimes, the alt text acts as a replacement for text in an image, like a company logo. The alt tag text can also vary depending on where the image appears (on a company's own site, or as an example in a blog post, a favicon on a social network, etc.) and you can choose to be as descriptive (or not) as necessary.

Read the whole story at Search Engine Guide »