Image tags and actual relevance

Do they count as content keywords?

[wockawocka]

Hi all,
I thought I'd ask this rather than blindly assume something is black when in fact it's white.

I'm writing my own blog content and as a photographer it's quite image heavy. Alt tagging all of these images is a pain and in many cases I feel unnecessary.

I do utilize the Yoast plugin that looks at my overall page info and say if I'm an idiot but the problem is this:

My content, usually is around 400 words with one or two uses of the keyword in it. The problem is the keyword is usually the wedding venue itself and yet the images will be named 'blah blah venue wedding' in the metadata title which in wordpress is carried into the alt tag automatically.

So with so many images Yoast freaks out and says I have bad SEO on the page but is it relevant? Is Google smart enough to spot the tags vs the content and evaluate the page accordingly or should I be renaming the images something else?

Thanks in advance!

[lucy24]

Uhm... You do realize, don't you, that the <alt> tag has a human function quite independent of its Google SEO aspect?

[wockawocka]

Hi Lucy,
Thanks for replying but I don't understand the statement (fully).

The alt tag is something only Google will see and as such it worries me that G will see it as an attempt at keyword spamming.

The problem us photographers have is that if the wedding is at a venue of a certain we worry google will think we're spamming if the file names are 'hilton hotel london wedding-1.jpg'

The question is also brought about by trying to work smarter. I don't rely on image search much but still want some relevance to the content on the page without tagging 75 images in the slow methodical process that is the wordpress image editor.

[toidi]

The alt tag is used by readers. Visually impaired use readers to read the website to them. So when you tag your photos use the name of the wedding party and describe the picture. So and so walking down the aisle. So and so taking their vows. So and so taking their vows 1. So and so taking their vows 2.

forget about seo and create the tags for the users, all of them. The tags are also displayed if the photo has a hard time loading.