How effective is keyword rich text in the alt attribute of an image?

[Navdeep]

hi all,
i am facing a problem, i don't have a keywords rich text on my webpages of say "widget.com", and i want to add new keyword rich description and title to the page.

i read it on the webmaster forum that it is recommended in effective SEO to add keyword rich text on the top of the page for good ranking, but i don't want to display text including some of my targeted keywords on the webpage.

i know adding the description having words or phrases that are nowhere on the page will not be a good step.

how can i solve this problem,
will adding keywords to the alt tags of the images serve this purpose?
is it effective to add keywords in alt tag as compared to displaying the text on the webpage?

please help me with some solutions
thanks
navdeep

[tomda]

If you have link, putting a title in the <a> tag helps.
For the alt tag, it is recommended but I do not know if it helps.

[pageoneresults]

Alt Attribute

Alt text is the line of text you see pop up (in Internet Explorer, see note below) when you place your cursor over an image. It also displays a text representation of the image when the user has images turned off in their browser (this is the intended behavior). It is highly recommended that you utilize this area as it is required under accessibility laws and, is indexed by the search engines.

Note: Internet Explorer (IE) will display alt text when you hover your cursor over an element that utilizes the alt attribute. This is incorrect behavior as the alt text is designed to be displayed when the user has their images turned off while browsing. Other browsers such as Opera and Mozilla will not display the alt text on hover.

Alt Attributes are not to be stuffed with irrelevant keywords or phrases. The alt text should mirror the content of the image. If it is a graphic header, then your alt text should mirror the text in the graphic header.

Alternative text values should not exceed 80 characters in length. If more than 70-80 characters are required one should use the longdesc attribute as an alternative to alt text.

Make sure your Alt Attribute is relevant to the content for that image.

[Navdeep]

thanks pageoneresults,
what is longdesc attribute and how it is used in SEO?

do search engines index the text in the alt tag?

thanks
navdeep s

[pageoneresults]

You can find more information on the above along with other basic areas of optimization here...

Building the Perfect Page [webmasterworld.com]

[thewyliecoyote]

Do not forget what the original purpose of the Alt tag is. Many visually impaired users use the Alt tag for navigation purposes and they have software which converts the text to audio.

As usual when considering your page for SEO remember that the keywords in the ALT tag must still make sense.

From what I have experienced the ALT tag for keywords is useful but ranks fairly low in importance to SE's. If anyone has any specific "improvement" results from using the ALT tag, I would be interested to know.