The Difference Between Image Alt Texts and Descriptions

I was talking with a friend who has a WordPress website. She’s trying to blog more and is fairly new to the game. She asked me a question about working with images and wanted to know what the difference is between an image title, an image description and an image alt-text. I got my computer out and tried to show her a couple of examples using actual images.

That’s when I realized that there are a LOT of terrible examples out there and a lot of sites that seem like they’re trying to give a good explanation of what this is but the examples ended up being really unclear. That’s when I realized that a post explaining this would be a good idea.

I’ve also been learning more about how screen readers work for people who have low or no vision, and alt text on images is super important for digital accessibility.

Alt Text is short for “alternative text” or “alternate text.” It’s also called “alt attributes” or “alt description.” Sometimes people even call it “alt tags” although tag is not exactly the right word to use in this case. WordPress calls it “alt text.”

The point of using “alternative text” on an image is so that there’s a text version describing the image that appears if the image doesn’t show (some people turn off image loading), or if they’re using a screen reader, and so that web crawlers can know what the image is about (web crawlers an’t “see” images, they can only read text).

Here’s an example of alt text:

You could use “pancakes” as alt text for this image. But that’s not very descriptive. A better description would be “A stack of pancakes on a plate with banana, walnuts and honey.” img src stands for “image source,” and the information in the quote marks in that field is the title of the image.

Okay alt text: alt="pancake">

Better alt text: alt="stack of pancakes">

Best alt text: alt="A stack of pancakes on a plate with banana, walnuts and honey">

Alt text, since it’s what appears if the image doesn’t display, should be as descriptive as possible. Describe what the image actually shows. But, also keep it short–125 characters or less is a good guideline.

Don’t “stuff” the alt text field. This means avoid making the alt tag for the pancake picture “best pancakes pancake breakfast pancake stack pancake restaurant pancakes best pan cake”. That’s stuffing and it’s bad for SEO.

The title field

The title field defaults to the title of the image. If your image is titled “pancakes.jpg” then pancakes is what shows up in that field. Many people don’t retitle their images so they upload images that are titled “DSC14906.jpg.” Change the title to a short description of the image. It helps you find the images later on your site if you need to sort through them. If pancakes is a SEO keyword on your site, use that in the image title. for example: “pancakes-stack-banana-honey.jpg” is great.

The description field

The description field is a little different and is the part that can get confusing. Images in a media library on WordPress are given their own URL. If someone goes to this URL what they will on this “image attachment page”is whatever information you put in this description field. This field can hold as much information as you want. It can be like the alt text, but longer and can contain keywords, or even metadata from your camera on how you took the photo, copyright etc. You can even add links in the description field.

All of this information that you decide to add in this field is displayed on the media attachment page if you make your image clickable to open to a bigger image. Not all WordPress themes support the media attachment page. But if yours does, if someone lands on the attachment post page they’ll see the long description. Add your important keywords here (no more than 10) and information that you want to closely describe the purpose of the post or page that the image is on.

The caption field

The caption field is easy to understand . . . it describes what’s in the picture for people who can see the image and want to know more about what’s in it. Unlike the alt text or description, the caption does not have to closely mirror what the image actually shows. I think most people understand how captions work but here is an example of how a caption could be written for the pancake photo:

The pancake is a traditional part of the American breakfast. It’s commonly served with butter and syrup, but the addition of fruit and nuts makes it even more delicious.

Make sense?

I recently learned of a situation where an employee was responsible for selecting images for blog posts for her employer. One of the company owners also selected some featured images for blog posts, and they were both uploading photos at the same time.

Fast forward a couple months later, and the employer received a copyright infringement notice from Getty Images. Turns out, one of them–it’s impossible to ascertain if it was the company owner or the employee–selected an image from either Unsplash or Pixabay which had been fraudulently uploaded. The image that was selected was actually from Getty Images and should not have been on the free image site. When the actual photo file was checked, it was clear that it was actually a Getty image, but in the meantime it had been used on this company’s blog.

Getty sent the employer a copyright infringement notice along with a demand to pay $200. It could have been worse…I’ve read of Getty sending out fines of up to $1500. It depends on the usage and the audience where the image was used, and I’ve also read that Getty is willing to negotiate, but the $200 fee definitely seems on the low end.

No business wants to be in a position of having to pay a fine like that or get an attorney to potentially negotiate down a large fee. So here are a few things that you can do.

1. Screenshot where you get your images. If you stick with a well-known and trusted site like Unsplash or Pixabay, you’re generally safe. But screenshot the page showing the image and keep it in your files just in case it ever becomes an issue. People can and do mistakenly or intentionally (fraudulently) upload images that should not be publicly accessible to these sites.
2. Consider paying for a membership to a site like Getty Images, so you can feel protected in your image choices.
3. Never just download or use images from another site, even if you believe they are “fair use” images.
4. If an image you find says that you must credit the photographer, do so.
5. Use WordPress’s new collection of more than 40,000 free, high-quality photos courtesy of Pexels. The new collection is available right from the WordPress mobile app.

To get started, make sure you’ve updated the WordPress app on your phone or tablet to the latest version (9.9). Once you’ve updated the app, you can find and add free photos to your library directly from the post and page editor, or from within the Media Library.

Open the Editor by either creating a new post or opening an existing one. Once you’ve opened the Editor, tap the plus icon to open the Media Picker. You’ll see a few different options to choose from: device, camera, or WordPress media.
If you’re on Android, tap the Device Media icon (looks like a mountain scene in a square), and select “Choose from Free Photo Library” from the menu.

If you’re on iOS: tap the ••• icon, and select “Free Photo Library” from the options.

Next, search for a photo to add to your post. Select as many images as you’d like and tap the “Add” button on the bottom right of the screen. That’s it! The images are inserted into your post or page, and they’re also added to your Media Library seamlessly.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

There’s no shortage of WordPress themes, right? But there is a shortage of themes that are digitally accessible–meaning that the themes include out-of-the-box features that make a website accessible for people with disabilities. Now, perhaps for the first time ever, there’s a turnkey WordPress theme that is essentially WCAG 2.0-compliant right out of the box.

We’ve super-packed the theme to be navigable by keyboard along with many other features. The value this theme brings is enormous, saving hundreds or thousands of dollars in developer time that would otherwise need to be spent retrofitting existing themes to be compliant.

Keyboard-only navigation is a primary feature of this new WCAG-compliant WordPress theme. This meets WCAG 2.0 guideline 2.1.1 specifying that all functionality of the site’s content is operable through a keyboard interface. Another key feature is coming standard with high-contrast colors and high-legibility fonts, which comply with WCAG 2.0 standards 1.4.3 for a minimum amount of contrast in text.

The theme comes standard with semantic HTML, meaning that the content is organized intelligently based on structural elements of a page. This kind of structure helps screen readers navigate a website effectively.

Furthermore, the theme comes with the Section 508 Plugin which scans images for alt tags–alt tags are an alternative to text that displays whenever people can’t see images. This is a key feature of a digitally accessible website.

All of these things that come standard with this theme are in the top 10 of the most important things a digital accessibility consultant will say is required for an ADA-compliant theme. With a theme like this, you don’t need to consult with an expert and spend thousands of dollars retrofitting your site to meet these basic standards–you’ll be meeting the standards right out of the box, and helping to protect yourself from a potential lawsuit at the same time.

Usually when it comes to writing, the advice given to writers is “less is more.” Think about the emails that you get in your inbox, the ones that compel you to read all the way through. They’re usually short, right?

cA study done by a brand marketing company for the technology industry, called Polar, found that headlines with 90 to 99 characters had the best click-through rate. The company studied 10,000 branded content articles and found a click-through rate of .43 percent for the articles with the longest headlines. Performance trended upward as the number of characters increased. Titles between 10 and 19 characters had the lowest CTR, which was .12 percent.

Some other details from the study:

Longer Headlines Improve CTR:Performance peaks at 90-99 characters and 15-16 words in length.
Use Numbers And Special Characters: CTR performance improves when numerical numbers and special characters ($, !, &, ?) are used in a headline.
Include Words That Relate To Your Topic: Including keywords that relate to the topic or category of your content will grab the reader’s attention and improved CTR performance.
‘If It Bleeds It Leads’ Is Not Always True: When looking at both positive and negative words, the median CTR improves when positive words are used in a headline.

I would recommend using caution with all of these when composing subjects for emails. Particularly with numbers and special characters in emails, as those almost always tend to trigger spam filters. Is this surprising to you? I have to admit it is surprising to me. Test it out. And let us know your findings.

People have a lot of what I politely call strange ideas about marketing. Most people wouldn’t do their own plumbing for their home. Most people wouldn’t try to set their own broken bone. When it comes to hiring a professional, people pretty instantly recognize that they need to hire a lawyer, doctor, plumber, electrician, etc when they need a service done.

But when it comes to marketing, many people think they can do it on their own. To a certain extent, anyone can do some marketing. But when it comes to high-level success, hiring a professional is the best move. Let’s break down why.

1. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell proposes that it takes 10,000 hours dedicated to a specific field in order to become an expert at it. Even if you cut that time in half, you are likely a few thousand hours shy of being a marketing expert.

Marketing experts have dedicated their livelihood to knowing the psychological triggers to getting people interested in an ad and then keeping them interested.

2. Professional marketers have an external perspective. You are likely too close to your business to really and truly see what improvements it needs. Successful marketing requires someone providing an external, objective view point. Maybe you think your calls to action are perfect, but maybe they’re not. What if some of the nuggets you’re providing to get people interested in your products or services are good, but could be a lot better? Someone who hasn’t built and managed your business as long as you have will know these things.

3. Professionals can help you develop a holistic strategy. This is as opposed to what many marketers do, which is a halfhearted attempt here and a halfhearted attempt there with little success in either place. Advertising on Facebook and/or in your local print publication can provide benefits, but without an overarching strategy you’ll likely not see long-lasting benefits.

Professionals marketers know that no one is going to knock on your door and ask for whatever it is that you are selling unless they first know who you are, what you do, and trust that you can deliver on your promises. Communicating all of that effectively, and in the most cost-efficient way means hiring someone with those core competencies. In other words…hire a plumber when you need a plumber. Hire a marketer when it comes to marketing.

Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash

We’re a website development agency! You probably already knew that, but we haven’t posted any new sites here in a while. Partly that’s because we’ve been writing about other things. Partly it’s because we just don’t think about it. Over the years we’ve launched so many sites. Launching sites is what we do, so sometimes we forget to take the time to celebrate those successes like we should.

Within the past three weeks we launched three sites, BlackGoldSights.com, Olympus-Controls.com and TonyBiglan.com. We’re proud of each of those sites, although they are all quite different from each other.

Olympus-Controls.com is an engineering services company that specializes in the integration of motion control, machine vision, and robotic technologies. They needed a site that would show off these skills through seamless video and automation. Their site needed to match the high-level of skill they bring to their projects.

The website for Olympus Controls featured a fully custom WordPress theme design and build that was integrated with Limelight Department’s own Content Blocks page-builder plugin integration. We’ve written about how full-featured Content Blocks is and you can read that article here. Content Blocks is similar to the popular WordPress plugin Visual Composer except that it’s be design different. The user can still control many things, but not so many things that it can “break” your site like it can if you make a mistake with Visual Composer.

Olympus Controls now has video seamlessly integrated into the background of their site. They also have a custom designed and built “Automation Partner Toolbox,” showcasing categorized vendors. Take a look at Olympus-Controls.com

BlackGoldSights.com also features a custom WordPress theme design and build with integration with Limelight Department’s Content Blocks page-builder plugin. Black Gold sells Bowsights, and they now have a seamless integration from their website to a sub-domain Shopify E-Commerce storefront. Word of mouth is a large part of this company’s business, so we made it easy for customers to tell them how much they love their purchases with a “Submit your testimonial” tool. It’s also easy for shoppers to find where to purchase products using the custom designed and built dealer locator. Check out these features at BlackGoldSights.com.

TonyBiglan.com is a much simpler site by comparison but one that we are definitely proud of. Tony Biglan is a social scientist and book author who has taken the many disparate areas of research into such issues as child abuse, poverty, crime and terrorism and explained how the research can be understood as a whole. If we as a society were to integrate the seemingly disparate findings of these many areas of research, we’d be able to slowly work towards a more peaceful and fulfilled society. Check out his work at TonyBiglan.com.

So while we at Limelight Department may not toot our own horn all that often, we are always hard at work bringing good websites into existence, one at a time. Do you need one?

It really doesn’t matter if you’re producing the highest quality content possible if the audience that’s reading it isn’t right for it. We believe that the right content given to the right audience at the right time is what will result in sales. But it’s not always easy to figure out exactly who your target audience is. Here are some tips.

First things first…really being successful at identifying your target audience takes some research and trial and error. This is why many small business owners hire professional agencies for their ad management. Most people don’t know how to get started with doing this type of business development and if they do get started, they don’t know how to interpret the numbers they’re seeing.

So if this is what you’re feeling, know that there’s nothing wrong with hiring a professional. It’s what we here at Limelight Department do and because we’ve done it so often, we’re good at it.

To start…take a baseline of where you’re at with your marketing efforts.

Promotional emails
Create a spreadsheet of your promotional emails, your open rate and click rate. Note the time of year they were sent out. Note the subject matter.

Blog articles
You have Google Analytics installed on your blog/website right? Take note of the blog posts that performed well. When were they posted? Does the time of day make a difference? Were you advertising to drive any traffic to any of them?

Facebook posts
Go into your Page Admin and view your charts of the results of your Facebook posts. To find this, go to your Ads Manager, then Page Posts, then Published Posts. Here you can see Privacy, Reach and Clicks/Actions.

For boosted posts, go to Ads Manager. Start with Account Overview. Click through to Campaigns and take note of the Conversions rates. You are looking for posts that have the greatest reach and Impressions with the lowest cost per result.

Any other marketing avenues?
Print ads? Radio ads? Google AdWords? Whatever you’re doing, document it and see where you are right now.

After documenting…
Viewing all of these results, particularly if you put all that info into one spreadsheet, should really help you figure out what’s been working and what hasn’t been. You only need to refine this now. This is where the trial and error comes in.

Does the time of day make a difference to your audience? Can you target your boosted Facebook ads more deeply?

If you haven’t already, think about the people your product or service is intended for. Not “just anyone who wants to buy it.” Think deeply about the following:

How old are they?
Where do they live? In a region, city, rural area?
Are they male or female?
What is their income?
What is their education?
What is their occupation?
Does their ethnicity matter?
Are the married?
Do they have children?
What are their hobbies?
How do they spend their time online?
What other details can you think of?

This will help you target to the best extent you possibly can, which just about guarantees your success.

Yes, the last few weeks of the year and the first few weeks of the New Year (Hey there, taxes!) are busy for any business. But here at Limelight Department we’ve been busy not only working on tasks for clients but working on a major new service we’re offering.

In April 2018, we’ll be unveiling a new website for our new service, Limelight Themes. These will be sales funnel-focused websites built specifically with YOUR sales goal in mind. Do you have a dog-walking business? Well, you need a totally different sales funnel map than you would if you were a dentist or a hypnotherapist. You also need totally different sales funnel maps depending on what your goal is as a dentist . . . are you wanting to entice new patients with an affordable checkup and cleaning package? Or are you wanting to bring in patients who used to visit you but have moved on to a different practice?

That’s the art and science of sales funnels. The key is to have a specific goal, and combine that with a website that is structured to move people to accomplish that goal. Our new service will make it easy to do just that, with sales-funnel focused websites built with a variety of specific occupations and goals in mind. From a digital agency with 10 years of custom WordPress development under its belt.

Stay tuned! When the new site is live we’ll announce it here, followed by more information about the pricing of the sales funnel service and how to request it.

On January 11, 2018, Facebook announced sweeping changes to the way it will display results on its news feed. Long-time users of Facebook know that Facebook has made numerous tweaks over the years, both on the page and behind the scenes in places like its ad manager. But these are the most significant changes in years.

Facebook has more than two billion members and is a primary advertising vehicle for countless small business, nonprofits and news organizations. OVer the next few weeks users will see less viral videos and news articles shared by media companies. Facebook is instead focusing on showing more content shared by a user’s family and friends. That means a photo or comment by a family or friend, with an emphasis on one that has been commented on more times, is what will be emphasized.

Facebook head honcho Mark Zuckerberg says the move is meant to maximize “meaningful interactions.” We think marketers might have a different view of what “meaningful interactions” are, am I right!? He also said that he believes people will spend less time on Facebook as a result of these changes. Zuckerberg said he wants to provide users with less “passive content,” which he considers to be videos and articles that the users just passively scrolls through rather than actually interacting with.

From our standpoint, deemphasizing posts from media outlets, nonprofits and small business (like ours! Like yours!) will hurt us. What are we to do?

Here are our recommendations . . .

Reconsider videos.

Zuckerberg says “video is such a passive experience.” He’ll display less of them on feeds.

Experiment.

This is the best advice Zuckerbergcould give when asked how it will affect marketers. He said, “experimenting . . . and seeing . . what content gets more comments, more likes, more reshares.” That may be what you have to do.

Avoid quick-hit, low-quality content.

Think twice about what you’re posting and curate it so that it is as meaningful to your audience as possible.

Take a baseline now. In order to experiment effectively, you need to know where you’re starting from. Get to know your ad manager and demographic data and begin taking note of what time of day your page visitors are on your page and what is clicked on. Start working within those top times and top content to dial in your efforts. If you don’t know how to find this information or how to understand it, this is something Limelight Department can help with.

Optimize your website and your sales funnels. If you’re getting less leads from Facebook, then it’s even more crucial that the ones you do get perform the desired action once they reach your website. Limelight Department specializes in marketing-optimized websites and sales funnels. The investment to begin making the right choices in marketing is a lot less expensive than continuing to market to the wrong people.

Dentists are some of the service providers who really benefit from having a lead-generating website. It’s crucial for service providers such as realtors, doctors, plumbers and other similar occupations to have an easy-to-find, user-friendly website that drives traffic to perform the actions that begin to create relationships. Some basic and not-so-basic considerations on a website can lead to success.

After all, where do your potential patients hang out? When they’re not at work or school, there’s a good bet that they’re online. No matter where you are or the age range of the patients you’re looking for, they’re online. Adults are online, and parents of children who would be looking for pediatric dentistry are online. Set up your website for its maximum potential to get new leads for your dental practice.

Optimize your website for mobile
Millions of people use smartphones as their primary means of accessing the internet now. Even if they have a computer at home or work, their phone is always in their pocket when they’re on the go.

After a large update in 2015 (which some people not-so-affectionately refer to as “mobilegeddon”) Google no longer ranks websites that are not mobile-friendly on its search results. If your site is not mobile ready, it won’t show on top pages of searches on the millions of smartphones and tablets in use.

When you’re considering mobile site configuration, you have the choice between responsive, dynamic serving, or separate site configuration. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Google prefers responsive design, and we can help you get that set up.

Have clickable phone numbers
A lot of businesses put their phone numbers on their website, but it is not clickable. Allowing for clickable phone numbers is a detail that is often overlooked when building a website. Since more and more people are accessing websites on their phones, having phone numbers that open to the phone for easy calling allows mobile users to tap and call you without having to write down the number. If they can’t easily call you, they might leave your page and go to the next dentist that they can easily call.

Lead form on website
Potential patients are more likely to find your practice through a search engine than through advertising, coupons, and Yellow Pages listings combined.

A strong online lead generation strategy for dentists ensures your practice has a steady flow of new patients, so you can continue to grow. Effective lead generation online starts with being visible online, and then making the process to get in touch with you easy, useful and informative.

A lead generation form on your website allows you to collect names and emails as well as provide some useful information to the people who are considering your practice. A lead generation form works well when you can exchange someone’s email address for something valuable that they want, such as a discount on a service, or useful information (“Top10 reasons Kids Love Invisalign”).

Advertise on PPC and social media
Hands down the most effective way to make it to the top of online results is through paying for advertisements and sponsored content. And yet, effective PPC and advertising marketing takes knowledge. Advertising to a cold audience or to the wrong audience is expensive. This is a great area in which to seek help. Limelight Department has years of experience in audience identification and targeting.

Create a sales funnel
The Internet today is highly competitive, and the costs for online ads are rising. Work smarter. Convert more visitors into customers and pay less by using a sales funnel that’s tailored to your audience. A sales funnel is a way to understand your potential customers, connect with them, and give them the knowledge and familiarity to be ready to accept you as their dentist.

There is a huge pool of potential customers who need dental services who don’t know who to turn to. By the time you set up a sales funnel and put it into practice, those potential customers will have enough awareness of your business and a trust with your practice to seek your practice out by name.