During a recent Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) presentation we discussed the topic of alt text. Normally this is a simple one, but today a previously unconsidered conflict of interest emerged:
"What is the correct alt text for a company logo?”
The SEO consultant:
As a brand I want to own as much real estate on google as possible. So if somebody performs a google image search for “Brand Name logo” then our website’s logo should be the first result back. So to help acheive this SEO would dictate we use the alt text [Brand Name logo].
The Accessibility Consultant:
This conflicts with the requirements of screen reader users and those without image support. The majority of websites use the logo to link back to the home page. If they do then the user needs to be told this is the case so we should opt for [Brand Name home page] instead.
There are two other minor reasons why we shouldn't use the term 'logo' in the image alt text.
1. By using the term ‘logo’ we are effectively classing the image as there for visual purposes only. What relevance does a logo have to a blind person?
2. SEO itself dictates that we use a clear natural description of the content a link leads to. The logo is not linking to the logo, it is linking to the home page, so why would we want to confuse search engines by telling them we are linking to the brand logo?
We never fully resolved this 'hot topic', but after careful consideration here's where I stand:
1. If the logo links back to the home page then ALWAYS use ‘Brand Name home page’ for the alt attribute as this correctly informs the user of the link destination.
2. If there is a genuine reason to want to be at the top of searches for logos then suggest they create a page especially for the logo - it could include a high resolution version, the story behind it, it's previous incarnations. SEO can be applied to this page in the same way as any other page on the site. This would offer better SEO of the term 'Brand Name logo] for both image and non-image searches. It would also result in a more relevant search result for users searching for the logo.
Another largely debated topic was about ‘hidden’ content, e.g. content positioned off screen using CSS. We are not sure whether this will be viewed by Google as ‘spamming’ and so be detrimental to SEO.
We certainly hope it doesn’t as this could be a real problem if it does. There are many legitimate reasons for hidden content, e.g. tabbed content, hidden accessibility navigation, hidden field labels, and modern web design these legitimate reasons will continue to grow.
We decided we don’t have enough information to determine this. We are going to take a look at some web logs, see if Google spiders CSS and JS files then take it from there. Will keep you posted...