Since the beginning courses one takes when learning to design a website to the constant automatic reminders one gets from their professional software, we are bombarded into remembering our <ALT> description tag. The Alt tag is meant to help those who cannot see the graphics embedded in a website. This is often caused by an error that causes the graphic to load, instead of seeing the graphic in this case, the visitor will see the description. Special software is also available to the blind. This software will read the description tags to visitors when hovering over a graphic. Through the use of the Alt tag, the web has become a place easier to navigate, and has allowed a place for optimizers to embedd keyword rich descriptions. In turn, pages that are rich in alt tags will have the ability to rank for content, despite an image/graphic lacking text.
Although most may have heard and understand the importance of an Alt tag, there is a lesser known tool that can also help to add descriptions to your website and make it more content rich. Unlike the Alt tag, this tool is not meant for images and graphics, but rather for links (text and images). This tool is called the Title attribute. Not to be mistaken for the <Title> tag, the Title attribute will allow you to add a rich description to each of your links when the mouse hovers over them. This Title can also take advantage of keywords similar to the Alt tag, and will provide a great deal of keyword rich content, specially to pages heavy in links. Look at the examples below and try the title tag for yourself. If you would like to see an example in action, hover over the following link or be sure to check out our San Diego SEO Homepage and hover over a few of our links there to see how we have employed it.
In text links, the Title attribute can be added after the <a href> link, and before the link text. In graphics, the Title attribute can be added just after the Alt tag.
<a href="link.html" title="descriptive title">Link text</a>
alt="alt description" title="descriptive title"
