What Do You Need to Know about Optimizing Images?

SEO is all about optimization, but is it the same for images?

Video transcription:

Tricia: I am supposed to be putting out Alt Text in there. I know this is off-topic, but I have a thing that is able to put code in, so when I upload an image, it will automatically pull in the Title, Alt Text, and something else. What are the things in there? It’ll automatically fill that in based on what is in the image so that I don’t have to go back in and put it in. It’ll automatically do it.

David: How are you doing that?

Tricia: I’ll have to find it. Let me see. It’s a code that I put in. I’m not sure where and when was the last time I did it. It was one of those codes, that as I’m putting them in, I was like, fingers crossed that I don’t break my site when I do it. But I always back it up, so if I break it, I’m okay. Let me see. I have it written down somewhere. I don’t know. Here, my checklist is here. Okay. So, I’ll put a link in chat to an article that tells you how to do it. It worked for me. So, it says how to do it. Let me see what it says. Automatically set the WordPress image, Title, Alt Text, and other Meta. You put it in so the new images when you upload them will have that. Are you seeing that?

David: Yes. You’re editing the functions.php file.

Tricia: Yes, of my child theme.

David: Right.

Tricia: But of course, I always make sure I’ve just backed it up in case I break something.

David: Yeah. So, if you do this, the child theme is the way to go because you don’t want to be changing this on your main theme because if it gets updated, it’ll be overwritten.

Tricia: So, I did that on mine, and then the last client, I believe, and it works.

David: Good. I will say a couple of things about image optimization. So, Google wants to see the Alt Text, Google doesn’t give a crap about the Alt Title, and it might care about the caption.

Tricia: Yeah. And usually, with the caption, I will put in something different if it’s going to show on the page. So that’s a question though for you, David. If it’s not going to show on the page, does it matter if we have a caption?

David: Makes sense. No. If the caption doesn’t show, that’s the only value.

Tricia: Okay. And usually, if I’m going to have the caption showing, I’m going to type something different in there or whatever.

David: Okay. So, I noticed when we were looking at your blog when you hovered it over it, it showed the name for that image.

Tricia: Yeah.

David: That’s the title. Google does not consider that.

Tricia: Okay. That’s cool. I guess that that’s more or when people are hovering…

David: Yeah. So, there’s usability benefit, but this article seemed to imply that it’s an SEO issue.

Tricia: Oh yeah. And so, a lot of times, if you’re uploading several pictures and then having to go in and put the Alt Text, this just makes it easier for me.

David: Oh, yeah.

Tricia: So that’s why I was really kind of doing it; Alt Text is the main thing that I do.

David: Right. So, remember we’re dealing with two, three hundred SEO ranking factors, and we know that Alt Text is one of two hundred factors that are all equal.

Tricia: Okay.

David: So, I know a lot of people obsess about Alt Text, but is that going to really make a big deal? Hey, if you could do it, great. Yeah, you know, it’s like a lot of things, you could put a lot of time and effort into it, and it not really be a great return on your investment.

Tricia: Yeah. And that’s why doing this just made it a lot easier for me to just kind of forget Alt Text because it automatically puts it in there for me.

David: Right.

Tricia: So, it made something that I wouldn’t always do, just automatically happen. So that’s why I like it.

David: Yeah. I think this is interesting. If you could automate it like this, as long as they’re all unique and not spammy, and the Alt Text doesn’t say I got this from deposit photos, and this is gobbledygook. Yeah. That would not be helpful.

Tricia: Yeah.

David: Cool.