Almost every business has a digital presence now, and businesses that aren’t yet online should be. Whether you’re a small business, freelancer, or blogger, there are a lot of other sites to compete with and everyone wants to rank higher, for good reason.
The SEO Benefits of Creating a Website with WordPress.com – WordPress.com
OK, officially I’m not here, but I wanted to share with you an article on WordPress.com’s online magazine, “Go“.
If you are new to site optimization or even if you already have some experience, its worth your time reading the above article. There are some hidden gems there, like the steps you can take to analyze your site’s current SEO to improve results.
Another good resource for learning SEO is the webinar run by WordPress.com. If you are more old school, back in the day, Blogging U ran a self-paced course by email on Blogging: Branding and Growth that is no longer available.*
Happy learning and see you next month.
*WPCourses has added a new free course on Intro to SEO. Check it out!
WPcomMaven 
The Alt-text for images is where I hang up . . . I post many images and some are derivative of one image. Describing what the derivative (or even the photo) content is often impractical and unhelpful.
. . . wait . . . I don’t have a business. Nevermind.
Although, strangely, I’ve had a near-tripling of daily visitors lately . . . perhaps I’m SEOing better without even knowing it.
Let me reply once the weather has settled and I’m back on my computer. The mobile app is somewhat quirky.
It’s a huge SEO boost when you add alt text to images, not only for accessibility, but also for search engines and people who use search engines. Doesn’t really matter whether your site is a business site or not. Or did I misinterpret your intent?
Also, if you add an image to your site in the block editor, look in the block sidebar and I believe you’ll see a link to a decision tree for whether to add alt text or not.
Weird . . . I didn’t get a notice for these comments. Or, I missed them (been getting more feedback recently and also lots of likes which I blow away . . . I might have blown away notices I shouldn’t have).
So, what do I want? Well, that’s hard to say. I would like for people to find my images when they are looking for a specific type of image (for instance, a cow). But, I’d also like for people to read the associated written portion.
. . . and yet, at the same time, I’m fine with the traffic I’m getting (much more, and it would take too much of my precious time).
The only reason I’d do it is for accessibility, but that would mean (to my understanding) an actual description of the photo, not just “cow looking at photographer” because I do a lot of variation/processing and I don’t know how useful something like “hawk in flight processed with Topaz Restyle to change hues and tones, then processed with Topaz Impression to make it like a da Vinci sketch, then digitally framed using Topaz Studio” would be to a blind person.
Even if I shorten that to “hawk in flight stylized, then turned into a sketch and framed” it doesn’t actually sound all that helpful. The opposite, maybe, by possibly arising curiosity and frustration at not being able to actually see the photo.
And, “hawk in flight” seems inadequate and misleading. I then fall into the trap of philosophizing how to describe colors to a blind person.
“If an image is conveying important information that isn’t available elsewhere on the page, a person who can’t see the image will not get that information if the image doesn’t have alt text specified by the HTML alt attribute.”
Se, that guideline right there stops me. There’s nothing important about the images I use. They are for entertainment and amusement and enjoyment. As I read that, it says I shouldn’t worry about providing alt-text for my images for the visually challenged.
Should I do it for the search engines? Well, search engines and me are not on speaking terms. They seldom find what I’m actually looking for . . . probably because of all the SEO optimizations that are being done.
Bottom line, I might just be rationalizing not having to add alt-text at all. Yeah; that’s probably it.
“If an image is conveying important information that isn’t available elsewhere on the page…” If you’ve already described the editing process in the body of your post, you don’t need to repeat it in the alt text. Think of it this way, what would you want to appear as alt text if none of your images loaded? That’s the other purpose of alt text.