Wish list of features

[FlaminFig]

Of course alt tags are important in the SEO of a website but it is only one of the many parts that go into having one’s website rank well. Google nowadays focuses more on the mobile version of the website and will consequently demote the desktop ranking as a consequence if the mobile doesn’t score well in its’ AI eyes. Then there is the human-factor, I mean in the end we are dealing with people so they also come into the equation.

All in all not one factor over rides all the other factors that the likes of Google looks for when ranking a website. For me Sparkle has got what I need to get great website ranking for my clients and i feel it will only get better as Sparkle matures!

[Vilhelm]

@duncan

I think you’re misinterpreting all this material. It is all specific to actual images, nowhere does it say that you should turn text into an image, for the purpose of setting the alt text.

I’m only talking about adding picture with alt text as opposed to not do that… Very often, I have no images that would make sense to add. Are you suggesting (and I’m sure you know more about this than me!) if I have a add a picture, with the words ‘green bananas’ as a ALT text (that picture could just be a picture of these words), that this won’t help convince the search engines that this page is about green bananas?

I’m simply looking for a quick way to add a relevant image in hope that search engines will understand better what the main topic is.

https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-is-an-alt-tag-and-how-does-it-impact-seo/
"What purpose do alt tags serve?

Search engines and other robots cannot interpret images, but images can play a crucial part in how people interpret a particular web page. Alt tags solve for this by providing text which is read by the search engines. When Googlebot or other search engine crawlers inspect a page, images with properly formatted alt text contribute to how the page is indexed and where it ranks."

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Alt Text For Images Guide: Do Alt Tags For SEO Still Matter in 2020?

" Q: Should I write alt text for all of my images?

A: Yes, because it is an easy opportunity to improve accessibility and user experience. Optimizing images with alt text will provide greater relevance to search engines about your content and help drive traffic to your site.

Q: Should alt text be a core focus of my SEO strategy?

A: No, because their impact on rankings isn’t great enough to significantly affect your rankings unless your website is image-focused.

Q: How high priority is alt text?

A: Writing alt text is a high priority whenever you upload an image to your site. Consider making this a standard practice because alt text is relatively simple to implement and stands to impact your SEO for a long time."

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Alt Text for SEO: How to Optimize Your Images

“With image links, Google uses Alt Text to understand more about the linked page”

All this can be done by taking a screen shot , cropping, and adding i, but if adding such stuff actually helps search engines know what our pages are about, converting text to image would probably be the fastest way to add an image (if it can be given alt text). Can alt text be added to regular images (not generated by converting text to images)in Sparkle, btw?

[duncan]

@Vilhelm

I’m only talking about adding picture with alt text as opposed to not do that…

Sorry my bad. I thought all this was in context of the earlier point:

@Vilhelm

Ability to save text boxes as a graphic.
Yes, search engines look at file name for images and also for ‘Alt text’ added to images, and these both make a difference/are useful ways to achieve better Google placement.

So we agree the ability to save text boxes as graphic is not actually useful or advantageous for SEO.

[Vilhelm]

@duncan

So we agree the ability to save text boxes as graphic is not actually useful or advantageous for SEO.

Yes, maybe? It’s simpler and quicker than taking a screen shot etc, and if it’s correct that an image with alt text actually helps the search engines understand what the main topics of the page is, a quick solution would be good (but not crucial). I have another reasons to convert text to images as well, and that is: When showing results, search engines show images next to an article, (and certainly do that when looking only at images). By having an image summing up the most important few words I can think of on that page, search engine users won’t have to trust Google’s random quote from the middle of some page, but instead see what I’we consider should be shown to everybody interested in that topics.

Again, this can also be done with workarounds.

[duncan]

Honestly a bit tired of this moving target.

Where do search engines show an image next to search results?

Search engines do show image search results interspersed with regular results, for some kind of searches, but the two are separate.

[francbrowne]

@Vilhelm I think you have to understand what the real purpose of All-text is. It’s an accessibility aid that allows people that use screen readers to have your page content read to them by the computer. If, for example, the screenreader sees one of your images, it will tend to read the file name, which could be fairly meaningless. So, by adding Alt-text to the image, the screen reader will read that out. So if the alt-text for your image is Green Bananas, the screenreader will say something like “Image of Green bananas”.

Google also uses image file names and Alt-Text descriptions in it’s IMAGE search option. This allows people to search for specific images using the google image search facility. So, if someone was searching for an image of green bananas, any image on your website that has that file name or alt-text may well find itself in the search results.

Clearly, if you add an image of a chunk of text in your page and give it an Alt-text of green bananas, it isn’t going to help you very much. This is because anyone searching for images of green bananas isn’t going to click on an image link of your piece of text - that isn’t what they are searching for.

In general searches, Google is looking for relevant content on your page - it does this by scanning the text content primarily to see if there is anything that relates to the search terms being used. Images will play a secondary role in determining whether content is relevant or not.

So, view the atl-text for what it is - an accessibility aid. Google will recognise it as such and may give you some extra points for making your site more accessible, But, if your images are just chunks of image text, you are not going to achieve any additional SEO benefits.

[Vilhelm]

@duncan

Honestly a bit tired of this moving target.

Where do search engines show an image next to search results?

Regarding Google showing images next to each search result, I see that all the time on my iPhone and iPad, but I’ll leave the alt text/convert to image topic – I know more about it already – thanks for responding.

[PaoloPa]

Can I add a wish for another feature?
Would be useful in the “Replace” option for an image to have the possibility to add from the clipboard
Thanks

[iSparkle]

Oh, HEAVEN FORBID!!!