Yes! Every image on your website needs BOTH a title and an ALT text. Here’s why:
The ALT text is used to describe the image to both search engines and to website visitors who can’t see the image (either because the image failed to load or because the user employs a screen reader).
Having an ALT text on every photo is:
SEO friendly ✅
Accessible ✅
Good UX on crappy bandwidth ✅
*Note: images that are purely for decoration (think: that background picture of a chart going up and to the right or an avatar placeholder graphic) do not need an ALT text.
Any true website pro will tout the need for an ALT text for each image, but you need an image title too…
The image titles are only visible on mouse-over or if you have a display that includes the title (think: image gallery lightboxes you can scroll through).
Now you might be thinking “there isn’t an instance on my site where the image title will display.” That may be true! Yet, I still encourage you to go ahead and change that image title from “Screen Shot 2022-10-02 at 11.17.24 PM” to “Bright Oath Marketing #MarketingTipMonday image Title Example” because you never know when you’re going to redesign your site and suddenly need all your photos to have titles.
I cannot tell you the hours I’ve spent throughout my career going back to audit every photo title in a website’s image gallery due to a website refresh.
Have an image title on every photo will:
Make future website changes more painless ✅
Learn from my misery and save yourself a future headache by giving a reasonable title to every image, even if you think you won’t need it.
Need help making smart decisions on the back-end of your site for SEO, long-term usefulness, and a great user experience? Let’s talk!