Many WordPress users mistakenly confuse image alt text with image titles. This common oversight can negatively impact your site’s SEO and accessibility without you even realizing it.
Through our experience optimizing thousands of images on our websites, we’ve discovered how crucial these small details are. Correctly implementing them is an easy adjustment that significantly enhances your visitors’ experience and boosts your search engine rankings.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll clarify the differences between alt text and image titles. You’ll learn how to effectively use each field to enhance your website’s performance.
In this tutorial, we will cover the following topics:
- What is the Difference Between Alt Text and Image Title?
- How to Add Alt Text to an Image in WordPress
- How to Add Image Titles in WordPress
- How to Automatically Set Alt Text and Image Titles Using AIOSEO
- Why Should You Use Alt Text and Image Titles in WordPress?
- Video Tutorial
- Frequently Asked Questions About Image Alt Text and Image Titles
- Additional Resources for Using Images in WordPress
What is the Difference Between Alt Text and Image Title?
Alt text, short for alternative text, is an attribute added to an HTML image tag that describes the image. This description helps visually impaired visitors and search engine bots understand the content of the image.
If an image on your WordPress site fails to load or display, the alt text will appear in its place, as illustrated in the following screenshot.
Alt text serves a different purpose than the image title.
The image title appears as a tooltip in a small pop-up box when you hover your mouse over the image.
It’s important to note that this tooltip feature only functions on desktop browsers with a mouse cursor. On mobile devices and tablets, the title attribute is not visible, making alt text more crucial for SEO and accessibility.
Both alt text and image titles enhance your website’s accessibility. For users with screen readers, alt text is vital as it is read aloud, creating a verbal description of the image for those who cannot see it.
Depending on user settings, the screen reader may also vocalize the title text.
For enhancing accessibility and improving search engine optimization (SEO), alt text holds greater significance than title text. Therefore, we highly recommend including alt text for every image you use.
How to Add Alt Text to Images in WordPress
WordPress makes it simple to add alt text to your images. You can do this using the block editor, the classic editor, or through the WordPress Media Library.
How to Add Alt Text in the Block Editor
To begin, create a new post or page or edit an existing one, and insert an Image block.
If you’re unsure how to add a block or need additional assistance with the block editor, check out our tutorial on using the WordPress block editor.
Next, upload your image or drag and drop it into the Image block. You can then enter the alt text in the settings on the right side of the page.
How to Add Alt Text in the Classic Editor
If you’re still using the classic WordPress editor, you can add the image alt tag when you insert the image.
First, click on ‘Add Media’ located above the posting area.
Then, either upload the image from your computer or click on the ‘Media Library’ tab to select from the images you’ve already uploaded.
To begin, select the desired image by clicking on it, then enter the desired alt text in the ‘Attachment Details’ section.
How to Add Alt Text in the Media Library
You can also add alt text to an image by navigating to Media » Library and selecting the image to edit.
Keep in mind that this will not affect the alt text for any existing instances of that image already inserted into posts or pages. However, if you add the image to a post or page after setting the alt text here, the new alt text will be included.
Guide to Adding Image Titles in WordPress
This can be a bit confusing because WordPress uses two different types of titles for images. One is an internal title for organizing files in your Media Library, while the other is the HTML title attribute that can appear as a tooltip for your visitors. Let’s explore both.
First, there’s the default image title that WordPress uses internally to identify media files in the Media Library and attachment pages. Second, there’s the HTML image title attribute that is added to images in your posts and pages.
Now, let’s see how to add both types of titles.
Adding the WordPress Image Title in the Media Library
You can easily assign titles to your images in WordPress using the Media Library. When you edit an image, you’ll find a ‘Title’ field available.
This title helps WordPress recognize and categorize the image.
When you click the ‘View attachment page’ link at the bottom, you’ll notice that the title appears as the heading on that page.
While the WordPress media title can be useful, it is not essential for image SEO or for users utilizing screen readers. The HTML title attribute of the image is generally more beneficial.
Pro Tip:Do you want to automatically set the WordPress media title as the image’s title attribute in your posts and pages? Check out the section below for instructions on how to achieve this using All in One SEO Pro.
How to Add an HTML Image Title Attribute in the Block Editor
Adding a title attribute in the block editor is straightforward. Click on the image, then select the down arrow next to ‘Advanced’ to access the advanced image options.
You can then enter the title directly into the ‘Title Attribute’ field.
How to Add an HTML Image Title Attribute in the Classic Editor
Using the classic editor to add a title attribute is straightforward. Simply select an image and click the pencil icon in the toolbar.
Next, you will be directed to the ‘Image Details’ screen.
To configure the image title attribute, click the small down arrow next to ‘Advanced Options’ located at the bottom.
You can now set the title attribute for the image. Remember to click the ‘Update’ button at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.
How to Automatically Set Alt Text and Image Titles with AIOSEO
Manually adding alt text and titles works well for a few images, but what if your website has hundreds or thousands? This is where an SEO plugin becomes invaluable. Let’s explore how to automate this task using All in One SEO.
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the leading SEO plugin for WordPress. It provides a comprehensive image sitemap and various SEO features to enhance your search engine rankings. Additionally, it allows you to automatically set alt text, image titles, and more.
To get started, install and activate the All in One SEO plugin. For detailed instructions, refer to our step-by-step guide on installing a WordPress plugin. To access the Image SEO feature, you will need the Plus plan or a higher tier.
After activation, the plugin will automatically start the setup wizard. You can find detailed instructions on how to properly configure the All in One SEO plugin in our setup guide.
Next, navigate to All in One SEO » Search Appearanceand click on the ‘Image SEO’ tab. Then, press the ‘Activate Image SEO’ button to enable the advanced image SEO features.
Configuring Image Titles with All in One SEO
Ensure you are on the ‘Title’ tab of the Image SEO section. Here, you can select tags that determine the format for automatically generating title attributes for your images.
For instance, including the ‘+ Image Title’ tag will ensure that each image in your posts and pages automatically uses the WordPress media title for the HTML title attribute.
You can also incorporate additional tags, such as your website title, into your image title attribute. All in One SEO can even remove punctuation and adjust capitalization in the title.
Configuring Alt Text with All in One SEO
Next, click on the ‘Alt Tag’ tab in the AIOSEO’s Image SEO section. Here, you can automatically format the alt text for your images.
By default, AIOSEO utilizes the image’s alt text. You can also incorporate your website’s title and additional information into the alt text for each image on your WordPress site if desired.
Expert Tip:Although this automation is very useful, we recommend manually reviewing the alt text for your most significant images. This ensures they are descriptive and beneficial for both your visitors and search engines. Consider automation as an excellent starting point.
The Importance of Alt Text and Image Titles in WordPress
We highly encourage the use of alt text for all images. At CanadaCreate, we also include titles for all images, though this is less critical than the alt text.
Alt text is crucial because Google considers it a key factor for image ranking. It is also utilized by screen readers to assist visitors with visual impairments in fully engaging with your content.
Avoid simply stuffing keywords into alt and title tags. It’s essential to make them descriptive and helpful for visitors who rely on them. You can include relevant keywords, but moderation is key.
For instance, if you’re writing an article about the best WordPress hosting, your target keyword might be ‘best WordPress hosting.’
In your article, you might include a screenshot demonstrating how to create an account with a well-known web hosting provider like Bluehost. Let’s examine some effective and ineffective examples of alt text for that image:
- The phrase ‘Account setup’ lacks detail and does not incorporate any relevant keywords.
- ‘Best WordPress hosting, WordPress hosting, best web hosting for WordPress’ fails to describe the image and is overly saturated with keywords.
- ‘Setting up a WordPress hosting account’ is a much more effective choice as it provides a clear description and naturally includes part of the keyword.
Frequently Asked Questions About Image Alt Text and Image Titles
Below are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions regarding the use of image alt text and titles in WordPress.
1. Which is more crucial for SEO: alt text or image title?
Alt text is significantly more important for both SEO and accessibility. Search engines such as Google prioritize alt text to comprehend the content of images. Image titles are less critical and primarily serve as additional information displayed as tooltips in desktop browsers.
2. Should every image include alt text?
Every meaningful image should include alt text, except for purely decorative images such as background patterns or divider lines.
For decorative images, leave the alt text field empty. This results in an empty attribute in the code (alt=""), which instructs screen readers to skip the image since it does not contribute to the content’s understanding.
3. What is the ideal length for alt text?
Alt text should be both descriptive and concise, ideally under 125 characters. Many screen readers stop reading beyond this limit, so it’s important to be succinct. Clearly convey the image’s content and context without overloading it with keywords.
4. Is it acceptable to use the same text for alt text and the image title?
While it is possible, it is generally more effective to differentiate them slightly. The alt text should describe the image for visually impaired users, while the title can be a shorter version or include additional, non-essential information that appears on hover.
5. Do image filenames impact SEO?
Yes, they play a significant role. Before uploading an image, assign it a descriptive filename that includes relevant keywords (e.g., blue-wordpress-hosting-dashboard.png instead of IMG_1234.png). This provides search engines with additional context about the image’s content.
Comprehensive Guide to Using Images in WordPress
We hope this article clarified the distinction between image alt text and image title in WordPress. You may also find these related articles helpful for using images in WordPress:
- Step-by-Step Guide to Properly Adding Images in WordPress
- How to Add Featured Images or Post Thumbnails in WordPress
- A Simple Guide to Adding Title Attributes to Images in WordPress
- Beginner’s Tutorial: How to Add Captions to Images in WordPress
- How to Overlay Text on Images in WordPress
- Basic Image Editing in WordPress: Crop, Rotate, Scale, and Flip
- Essential Tools for Creating Stunning Images for Your Blog Posts
- How to Optimize Images for Web Performance While Maintaining Quality
- Easy Steps to Implement Lazy Loading for Images in WordPress
- Quick Fixes for Common Image Issues in WordPress
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