I can’t imagine what it’s like navigating the internet without being able to see.
I talked about naming images for SEO a while ago. But I thought it’d also be interesting to look at naming images with visually impaired people in mind. How descriptive can you get without creating stupidly long file names?
Naming images – How to get it right
One of my recent posts included an image of a lion. I called it ‘lion’. Which in retrospect isn’t really good enough.
‘Lion’ could mean a lion in the far distance set against the tawny African savannah. It might mean a lion’s silhouette against a fiery setting sun. Or a lion lounging in a tree, gnawing at a bloody chunk of prey. It’s actually a close-up of a lion’s face.
If I was visually impaired I’d appreciate more detail. Close-up-of-a-male-lion-face-in-golds-and-browns-with-a-bit-of-mane-showing.jpg would be silly. But something like male-lion-face-close-up.jpg would do a much better job of describing exactly what the image is than a one-word file name.
Of course you can include keyterms in image file names. But it’s a bad idea to take the mickey and risk the wrath of search engines. Take it easy and exercise common sense. Only include a keyterm if it’s strictly relevant to the image – in other words it helps blind site visitors ‘get’ the subject matter. People first, search engines second.
