Wordpress image fields optimization for SEO??

[mikepcservice]

Hey guys, this topic is the only thing in SEO which is kicking my you know what! I am at a point of freakin frustration with this as way too many conflicting info on the net so I don't know what to believe. I spent most of yesterday watching a ton of videos and reading articles on this and I am still not clear, GEEZ!

Can you guys PLEASE help me with this? This is the summary info in my notes from my studying up on this:

Filename should tell what the image is about - Does not need key phrase?
Make the Title and Alt tags different –Use keyphrase in both!
- both are read by search engines and can influence rankings
The title is used when you hover over an image but you do not need it?
Alt text - text that describes an image. Alt Text used by screen readers
Caption - to point out something specific in the image.
Description - Not important for SEO so you can leave out?

Can you guys tell me what is true and false in the above please? Thanks.

 

[Conor Treacy]

All of the above is true, with the possibility of #1 being "maybe".

Filename: I still add the keyword/target in the filename
Caption: Sometimes used to credit source or names of people (just like you see in a newspaper)

 

[mikepcservice]

Ok, let me take this image attached as an example for SEO purposes, the WP meta info for the keyword "Microsoft Windows 11 installation" would be:

Filename: Microsoft Windows 11 installation image
Title: Leave blank since this does not factor into rankings.
Alt: Picture of a Computer Microsoft Windows 11 Operating System
Caption: Microsoft Windows 11 picture showing logo
Description: Leave blank since this does not factor into rankings.

If the above is accurate then I only need to fill out these 3 fields in any image: filename, alt and Caption, is this correct? If yes, how can I better optimize each of those 3 fields please? If yourself or anyone can adjust the text in those 3 fields for me please would be great!

 

[Conor Treacy]

Here's how I would do it;

Filename: microsoft-windows-11-installation-desktop.jpg
Alt: Microsoft Windows 11 Installation Desktop Assistant
Caption: Lots of new features with the new Windows 11 Installation

This image, in particular, might be better labeled as "Windows 11 OS New Search Feature" as it's less about the installation screen and more about the search or menu screen, but you get the idea.

As you continue down your article, maybe you'll have a screen showing the new Widgets available, so your caption would be related to the widgets end of things.

 

[mikepcservice]

Thanks, I see now. I was focusing more on describing the image to google and the reader but your focusing added the kw 3 times while going into more detail about the image. Let's take this last image if you won't mind please to see if I got a better handle on this now.

Say I would use the kw "Digital Marketing Services"

Filename: digital-marketing-services.jpg
Alt: digital marketing services agency
Caption: people working in a digital marketing agency

Would this work, if not, any way to make it better please?

 

[Conor Treacy]

In my view, yes, that would work. And even doing "people working online at a digital marketing agency" might be an extra one up - this way you would potentially get "online marketing agency" or "online digital marketing" as a phrase there too.

 

[mikepcservice]

Great and understood now!

I really appreciate you helping me with this Conor, you know the proverb "teach a man to fish". Many blessings!

 

[mikepcservice]

Oh, one last thing please, is there an online utility I can use to fill in the same 3 meta info fields into an image on my desktop?

 

[Conor Treacy]

Oh, one last thing please, is there an online utility I can use to fill in the same 3 meta info fields into an image on my desktop?

Not that I know of. I know that the images themselves have EXIF info that can be added, but much of that gets stripped when an image is optimized (depending on the tool). But EXIF wouldn't normally contain file name information. It would contain GEO information - which is a different topic with lots of threads here - but that's about the only other thing saved on an actual image file itself.

 

[mikepcservice]

Yeah I couldn't;t find anything before posting here. I also had looked up downloading the image from the Media folder so it would retain the meta info but could not find anything on that either.

This is for craigslist Ads purposes actually, I had wanted to include the meta info in my images for that purpose.

 

[mikepcservice]

Hey guys, since having to do each photo manually on a site with many photos is painstaking, is it a good idea to use this plugin please?

Auto Image Attributes From Filename With Bulk Updater (Add Alt Text, Image Title For Image SEO)

Automatically add Image Alt Text, Title, Caption and Description from Filename. Bulk update existing images. Great for Image SEO and Accessibility.

wordpress.org

 

[djbaxter]

I wasn't aware of this plugin before. Why not give it a try and see if it does what you want it to do?

I think I'll try it out on one or more of my WP sites.

 

[mikepcservice]

I wasn't aware of this plugin before. Why not give it a try and see if it does what you want it to do?

Because io already spent a lot of time and effort on every image so don't want to risk messing it up. If this works I can try it "first" on any new site to see what it does.

 

[Conor Treacy]

I haven't seen that one before, but I have seen similar ones. RankMath has a built-in option for this too.

This particular plugin does state that their PRO version allows you to not override existing ALT/Title etc, but their free version doesn't have a "skip" option (from what they're saying anyway).

Since the title, description, alt text is stored in the database in WordPress and not in the actual file meta, there's no clean way to keep a file locally and still retain what was filled out for each item.

 

[mikepcservice]

Yeah I tried different thing including editing in Word e.t.c.