Alt tag descriptions for images

An alt tag (or Alternate Text) is a piece of text, invisible to the visitor, that you use to describe an image. Search engines are smart but they can't yet see exactly what's in an image, which is why you can help Google by adding a description to the image.

What are the benefits of completing an alt tag?

As mentioned above, search engines have a hard time seeing what is in an image. If you have not renamed the image and it comes directly from your photo camera or phone, then the image often has the file name such as dsc_4949.jpg, Again, of course, that says nothing about what is in the image.

When you help the search engine, it can better understand what the page is about and you can rank higher as a page, but also Google can use the picture in Google Images.

For people with visual impairments, there are screen readers and other special software where pages are read aloud. These often also use meta descriptions given to an image in the case of image. So be sure to use the correct descriptions in Joomla.

Adding an alt tag to images using TinyMCE

If you use the tinyMCE editor that is installed by default with Joomla, you can add an alt tag in 2 ways.

1) Click on the image button.

Select the image you want to add an alt tag to.

At the bottom of the popup, enter the "Image Description (ALT Text)".

2) Select the photo in the text.

Click on the image icon.

Fill in the "Alternative description" field.

Adding an alt tag to images via JCE Editor

At the bottom of the popup, select the image you want to add to your text.

Then fill in the "Alternate Text" field.

Adding an alt tag to images in Hikashop

Add an image by dragging an image to the "Images and other files" box.

Then click on the image.

In the popup you see next, enter the "Name (ALT)."