Optimising your Picture Galleries:

Img Tags and Dimensions

Always, always, always use the dimensions in your img tags like so:

<img src="image1.jpg" width=100 height=126>

This tells your pc where and how to draw the screen. This is very important because if you have quite a few images on your page, it can can take some time before your computer can place every image on the screen correctly. If you've placed the image dimensions in your img tag, the computer now at least knows that an image measuring 100 pixels in width by 126 pixels in height needs to be placed on the page in a specific location. While it's trying to figure out what to display and where to display it, it can make itself busy putting the text on the page while waiting for the images to be drawn. This gives your viewers something to look at other than a blank screen, and depending on your page layout, your viewer may not even notice the delay at all.

The Image Alt Tag

<img src="image1.jpg" width=100 height=126 alt="short descriptive message repeating your keywords/phrases">


This again, is an important tag and is one of the most underused tags around. The alt tag is used to describe the image that you're placing on the page. "Why is that necessary", I hear you ask, "sure I can see the picture on the screen". Well, strange as it may seem, some people actually surf with the image settings in their browser disabled, so they end up seeing no images at all, if you have your alt tag setup properly, they can now see a description for that hole that is in the middle of the page. I've deliberately mistyped the name of the pic on the right so that you can see the effect of having your images turned off.

SEO

There is a more important reason for us to use it however. SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation can be greatly increased by the correct use of the alt img tag. You may or may not know that the search engines cannot 'see' or read pictures, so if you have a gallery page, the SE's won't have a clue what's actually on that page . This is where the alt tag comes into its own, because now, not only are you going to tell the SE what is on your page, but you can indulge in a little SEO (search engine optimization) of your own. Instead of calling your pics, 'pic1.jpg', ' pic2.jpg' and so on, you can now be a little more creative (pardon the pun) and give your pics a more descriptive name using the alt tags. This is especially true of clickable images such as thumbnails. So if you specialize in selling widgets in townsville, you could place in the alt tag 'quality widgets in Townsville'. This is now what the SE will pick up