Search engine optimization is vital in academic publishing. The official term for this is academic search engine optimization or ASEO. A focus on this format in addition to the highest standards of content ensures that the author’s publication can be found easily in academic search engines, databases, and other referenced searches.

It’s as simple as tweaking titles to more user-friendly versions, adding vital keywords, and including an abstract. But an often-overlooked essential part of ASEO is the inclusion of alt-text.

What Alt-Text Does

Alt-text, short for “alternative text,” makes a website or paper more accessible to readers. Most people don’t need or bother with this part of optimization. However, for people who use assistive technology to navigate the internet, it’s an essential part of comprehension. Alt-text allows those readers to engage in the images when they can’t see them.

The text explains the picture, video, or other visual content. This is particularly vital when an academic researcher includes graphs, charts, or diagrams to reinforce parts of the content to give the reader further context or clarity.

Optimizing Alt-Text Benefits Everyone

Most publishing sites across the globe require scholars to provide accessible formats like alt-test for all readers. In some countries, like the United States, this helps the publisher meet equal opportunity guidelines and regulations.

Images, tables, diagrams, and other visual content are referred to as “floats.” Any writer using a float in their content should automatically provide alt-text as descriptive information for the accompanying visual image. With a strong description, the author benefits as much as the reader does because the reader base is increased in search engines.

If an image can’t be loaded, the descriptive text replaces it in the reader’s visual field. The text is sent to search engine crawlers that use it to index the images and bring the author’s work to the results if the keywords match. But the alt-text must be created by the author.

How to Use Alt-Text for Your Paper

The key to optimizing alt-text for your paper is to do it thoroughly, but not overwhelmingly so. These tips can help you as you create your text caption:

●      Make each image’s text original. Duplicating what’s already in your text takes away from the flow of the paper, causes confusion, and doesn’t add extra help for the search crawler.

●      Use specific terms to describe the floated image as though you were explaining it concisely to someone who could not see it.

●      Stick to 125 characters or less. This is the limit for many screen readers, and it gives you a solid cutoff to ensure you’re not overdoing the explanation. If you find that you’re struggling with that strict limit, get rid of superfluous terms such as “image of” or “picture of.” Anyone using alt-text to gain an idea of what the visual is already understands that the text is explaining the corresponding float.

●      Include keywords when possible to aid in connecting search engine crawlers, your paper, and potential readers. Avoid “keyword stuffing,” which is using terms to pull in search engines, even if they don’t make sense. The flow should naturally include some keywords because the content matches your article’s purpose. If it makes sense, add a keyword term in the alt-text box.

Combining alt-text optimization techniques along with other SEO specifications helps you gain new readers, which ultimately increases your citation count and scholarly reputation. It’s all connected together. The small things, like image descriptions, make a difference in how impactful your research can become.

Optimizing Your Work With Impactio

How well is your alt-text working to pull in extra citations for your published work? Do you need to re optimize your paper, or increase your SEO knowledge? Are you in the process of a research project that could use some outside expertise to enhance your findings?

All of these questions and more are solved within the Impactio community.

Optimizing your paper to increase your reader base and make the publishing website accessible to all is a crucial task you shouldn’t take lightly. On top of that job, there are other ways you can improve the impact of your research. Thousands of academic professionals around the world use Impactio to take their work to the next level.

Impactio connects scientists, PhDs, funders, and researchers together within an extended network of professionals. The platform provides you with all the tools you need to engage with others. Whether your goal is to expand your current publishings, profile academic CVs, or check out your research impact analytics, Impactio has the tools to get the job done.