What to put inside ALT TEXT for images

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Frank Geric: Content. Ideally include the primary keyword for the page in the alt tag.
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  Frank Geric: Also name the image itself with a keyword. So if your article is on “6 uses for widgets” your image would be uses-for-widgets.jpg and your alt tag could be “6 uses for widgets”
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  Vedra Kex: But what if an article has more images then I can`t name them all the same. I understand that the alt text needs to describe to Google what is on the image, although they are already pretty advance with their ai and stuff, sometimes images on a page are not really directly related to the subject but they sort of are. For instance if I write about an article about paying a loan with this bank and how is all hassle free, then I might include an image of someone going on vacation just to show how you can pay your dues and still chill lol. So I would use the alt text `Person relaxing on a beach - Bank X Loans`.
  
  Also, image naming doesn`t really affect the seo ranking from what I`ve read, it`s the alt text that`s crucial.
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  Kevin Jech Schinnerer: Vedra Kex naming the image is important, it is read by search engines in the code and used for image search traffic. I do write my alt text for accessibility and search engines. So your example is correct, I just normally lead with the keyword and then the image description. In regard to multiple images, use different versions of the keyword e.g. uses-for-widgets.jpg, best-uses-for-widgets.jpg, using-widgets.jpg etc. hope that helps!
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  Vedra Kex: Kevin Jech Schinnerer thanks Kevin! I know that naming is also important and that has been handled as well but it’s not as descriptive as the alt text and I was considering also that it named by our naming convention so it’s also easy for content editors to find appropriate image files and of course describing what it is. Didn’t want to use long names as it was advised not to use it too long, based on many articles I read. I was more focused on one crucial keyword rather then a long descriptive name. That’s what I used the alt tag for. If that sounds reasonable?
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  Kevin Jech Schinnerer: Vedra Kex I always strive for best practice and you’re correct about character count in file names. So I always try to optimize for SEO and Accessibility.
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  Vedra Kex: btw. when it comes to multilingual site, should I translate the image names as well or is translated alt text enough? I read that it`s ok and that often image files are in the primary language of the site. It`s also for the content editors and managers to find the files, as the primary language is EN. What are your thoughts? Kevin Jech Schinnerer
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  Kevin Jech Schinnerer: Vedra Kex hi! In a perfect world alt text and image names would be written to cater to the language of the content. I understand that is a lot of work and the content writers may not be able to work within this structure, so it’s based on really what you can work with. I believe there is a php function that can serve one image and change the file name based on language, but the would also take a lot of work and an experienced developer.
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  Vedra Kex: Kevin Jech Schinnerer I agree yeah, very useful information, I`ll look into it, thank you!
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  Vedra Kex: Kevin Jech Schinnerer btw. do you by any chance have a source where I can read more about the PHP function that does this? TO change the name, do you still need to have the translated name or does it full down the data automatically using google translate or similar?
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  Kevin Jech Schinnerer: Vedra Kex here is a source for the function to change file names - https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/.../how-to-name... and here is a source for using the google translate api that might help with your second question, but I’ve never used it so my knowledge is limited in this area - https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/
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  Dumb SEO Questions: I always stick to the original function of alt text when I write it - to tell sometone using a screen reader what the image is. You can describe the image and still pop in a key phrase.
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  Weldon Stanford II: Dumb SEO Questions ^ This 🤘 100%
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  Eric Lammers: ^^ This ^^
  
  Because website ADA compliance is gaining a lot of steam. So you want to already have some of the work done, and done right.
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  Michael Martinez: It is better to describe what is in the picture because if that description isn`t relevant to the text content on the page then you should be asking yourself why the picture is there at all.
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  Vedra Kex: Thank you all for your answers! Yes images are related if you read through the page but perhaps not if you think of an image by itself, although with some thinking it is natural and relatable. Cool thank you guys! =)
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  Vedra Kex: Thank you all, very helpful, ai appreciate it. 🙂
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  Col Burt: I would write it as it you were describing the image to someone who is visually challenged. try to drop in a keyword, but only if it makes sense to.