Image ALT Attribute and SEO: Do Keywords There Still Matter?

Question. Are image keyword alt tags and naming images with keywords still helpful to do today or is it kind of a thing of the past?

Answer: Short answer: YES.  A recent study by Backlinko (here),  analyzed thousands of websites.  They determined that links are the No. 1 factor to success (at which point I think everyone int he SEO community said: DUH), but they had some newer interesting points, among them:

7. Content with at least one image significantly outperformed content without any images. However, we didn’t find that adding additional images influenced rankings.

So, that study indicates that YES image ALT’s do impact SEO. So YES put your keywords into AT LEAST ONE image per page.  I always recommend at least one image with an ALT.

Also, cross-link the pages to each other around keyword phrases, and you can use an AHREF to link FROM an image TO a landing page with the keyword embedded in the ALT. Even better, most “humans” don’t see the ALT’s so you can be a bit clunkier, heavier in SEO as you do the ALTs. So they are a good “trick” to embed more keyword heavy content on a page without ruining the user experience. As is always true in SEO, do NOT overdo this.  One image can help; twenty optimized images will hurt.