ALT tagging images with keyword. What is too much?

[John_Francis]

I was wondering about the best practices of ALT tags in images. Say if you have an eCommerce site and you're on a product page. This product page has 5 images of the same product (different images), should you give every image an Alt tag with the keyword for that page? Or, is that keyword stuffing, and it would actually be best practice be to provide alt tags on just one image?

[John_Francis]

Hi all,

Thank you all the super quick replies! The information you have all provided has given me much more clarity. It probably sounds a little naive, but I never knew the direct purpose for the alt tag, so thanks to all!

[TakeshiYoung]

Agreed. You should describe what is depicted in the image using the alt tag-- this helps Google understand what the images is about and also helps people who are vision impaired or are using text-based browsers. The alt tag is also displayed in regular browser if an image fails to load for whatever reason, or if the user decides to turn images off while browsing.

[Linda-Vassily]

Alt tags are used to convey information to people who cannot see the images, so they should always be used (unless the image is just decorative). If the images are different, use different alt tags.

[TomRayner]

Hi John

If you aim to make the alt tags descriptive and not just contain the keyword, I think it would be fine.

So, let's say your shop sells shoes, the five image alt tags could look like this

Brand Trainers Front View
Brand Trainers Side View
Brand Trainers Rear View
Brand Trainers Size Guide
Brand Trainers Packaging

The whole idea of the alt tag is to provide an accurate description of the picture.  Using a method similar to this would do exactly that, while having the product or keyword in the alt tag would be perfectly natural, as it's using the alt tag for its primary function of describing the image.

This is only based on my opinion and experience, but having used similar methods in the past, I've never had a problem with over-optimisation, as it were, so you should be grand!

Hope this helps.