Example of Proper Image Text for Scientist Searchers

This post is in response to a comment string from a previous article on scientific alt text.  It illustrates an example of building website content from the scientific visitor perspective.

Jon commented – Here are the alt tags I used …you are welcome to use them as examples etc. (perhaps these will go in the what-not-to-do section…which is fine, but teach me how to improve them). – webpage – morpholino optimization

First image, figure 1 panel 1
alt=”Figure showing target regions used in a Morpholino oligo-walking experiment through a region of RNA secondary structure in a hepatitis B virus leader sequence.”

This is a great start. But its a little long (5-7 words is best) and the context of the page is missing. I took a look at the page on morpholino optimization on your site and in the code I noticed there are potential issues with the title tag that can help us get this correct.

Remember  – the title tag is the most important for describing the image.

For example, the first image is titled – “optimal_target_1.gif.”, it could be improved with a better description such as “morpholino_optimization.gif” or “morpholino_silencing_efficiency.gif.”

Next use the alt tag to put the image into context of the page.

In this example, I might suggest- “Choosing morpholinos based on RNA secondary structure“.

Keep it brief as some browsers will break alt text.

The idea is to consider the context a scientist interested in your product (morpholinos) would be searching in google. They might be interested in “best practices for morpholino design” or “optimization of morpholinos” or “targeting morpholinos to RNA or secondary structure or hairpins“. You might also get “how to design morpholinos” type searches.

Now as you go down the page, image text should flow logically with context they meant to illustrate.

Second image, figure 1 panel 2

New Title = antisense_activty.gif, New alt text = “mRNA target position determines morpholino silence activity.”

Third image, figure 2 -

New Title = morpholino_target.gif, New alt text = “best target choice for a Morpholino oligo AUG start codon”

Each time considering what a scientist might be searching for.

Hope that helps

We are in the middle of assisting a large science company re-writing all the content, code and image text with scientific keyword association illustrated above. It seems tedious, but it is critical with all the competition out there.

Rusty Bishop

Rusty’s expertise rests in his ability to apply his Scientific Experience to the Marketing and Sales Funnel. Something we call the Red Funnel. He has developed a deep understanding of the web and the toolset needed to analyze websites as well as sales and marketing tactics both online and in the field.

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