When it comes to ALT attributes, there are several active debates. (1) Is it an ALT “attribute” or and ALT “tag?” (2) Do they help with SEO or just usability?
For the first question, I’ll tell you that purists call the image tag an “ALT attribute.” However, if you’re one who uses a WYSIWYG program like DreamWeaver or GoLive, you’ll know this as an “ALT tag” because that’s what those programs call them. Whatever you refer to it as, Matt Cutts tells us there is a way to create these so they do their job with usability and help Google out at the same time.
This video is an excellent tutorial.
The key points?
1) Renaming tags to be descriptive can help. Just don’t go overboard and stuff them full of keywords.
2) Seven or eight words per description is plenty. Twenty to 25 is way too much.
3) They must accurately describe the image.
4) Rename image files to be descriptive as well. (Ex: cat-yarn.jpg)
5) “Adding an ALT tag is very easy to do and you should pretty much do it on all your images. It helps your accessibility and it can help us understand what’s going on in your image.” Matt Cutts
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