ALT tags for images

[rrw]

Does anyone know if there is a way to attach alt tags for our images? We have SOOO many photos on our web site and would love to see some of them come up in searches. From what I understand, that's important.

[GoldenEagleOutdoors]

The product images on my site have alt tags associated with them as part of the software. As far as the other images, you can add those yourself using the alt attribute in your html code.

One sidenote, Target settled a suit a few years ago because they didn't have alt tags on their images on their website.

[rrw]

. . . As far as the other images, you can add those yourself using the alt attribute in your html code

Can you tell me how/where you would use the html code? I can find no way of adding it anywhere in the file manager nor in the product image page.

[customtshirts]

One thing I can say about the Alt text for the images, that alt text for the images is really very important for the SEO purpose.

[cbsteven]

You need to manually edit the template page which controls your item detail pages. For us the page is listing_0.html. For example there is a line there that looks like:

<img src="thumbnail.asp?file=[image1]&amp;maxx=300&amp;maxy=0" id="large" name="large" alt="[name]" width="190px">

I added the alt tag to include the [name] of the product.

[rrw]

Thank you SO much for that! I knew the alt tags were very important--on our last site, our Google rankings climbed from something like the 5th page to 1st page after adding them. Much appreciated! :)

[poysoniv]

where do you put the alt tags? You wrote in the template section but where the template section?

[cbsteven]

Again for me it was listing_0.html. I believe the listing_# file depends on which options you are using for your item display. You can experiment to see which one it is. You have to use FTP to download the file and put it in your template folder.

[SarahInc]

Thanks for the info! Although, I must say I went in to add the alt tag and it was already there. Maybe 3dcart is now including this with their newer templates.

[watchdr]

what about the spacer images?

Do you put the alt tag on them with nothing in the quotes? If so how does this help rankings?

Or would it be better to put something in the quotes?

Thanks.
Ken

[mondo]

Alt tags are definitely needed for seo since bots can't see pictures the alt tag is content. We do them all on our sites.
We probably haven't got them all but for spacers/corners and such we also put alt tags like spacer or pixel.gif/corner/ect in as well to comply with 'proper' html rules. If you do a site validation it will give you warnings if they are missing. Don't know that it affects ranking but it's my understanding that bots like properly coded sites so may not like pics with no info.

Who knows? Maybe one day we'll hit the first page for 'spacer' :-)

[watchdr]

Thanks. That is what I thought but wasn't sure how that would affect rankings. I don't need to be #1 for spacer. Not sure those searches would bring any money! I'll settle for #2.

[Jason Halls]

Hello,

I am trying to work out how to enter the alt tags for my images. I am very aware of the HTML code to use for alt tags and very familiar with the concept but I can't find out how to enter them for my product images.

When you guys are talking about ALT tags for images are you really referring to the caption space in the products manager under the picture itself. Will the alt tag be created by the product caption or is this really the alt tag and 3dcart have decided to call it "Caption"?

We are just building our store and want to ensure my SEO is as good as it can be and I know ALT tags are so important.

Many Thanks,

[cbsteven]

What you need to do is edit your listing file. For example, I use listing_0.html.
It's pretty easy to go through that if you know basic HTML, find all the <img> tags, and add an alt parameter for them.

[Jason Halls]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. It seems I am on a later version of 3dCart as I have found it already has the line of code in it to pull the alt images from the product name.

Saves me some time, just had to hunt it down.

Thanks again.