Having image titles and alternate text is an important accessibility and SEO tactic that we highly recommend you incorporate into your WordPress site. But, once added, how do you go about updating them if needed?
It’s a simple process:
On the page or post that has the image you need to update, click on the image and the “Edit” and “Remove” buttons will appear along with alignment options. Click on “Edit” pencil icon. This will bring up the following screen:
From this screen, you can change the image’s “Alternate Text”. Click on Advanced options to change the Image Title Attribute if it doesn’t have one. Don’t forget to click “Update“.
NOTE: It is always best to change the alt text or title attribute in the media library instead if you want to make a permanent for that image so that it appears every time the image is used in the future. Changing the alt text once it is on a page or post, will only change it for that specific page or post it was already added to.
What’s the difference between alt text and a title attribute?
- Alternate text: what screen readers and search engines read when they view an image on your site. If there isn’t alternate text, search engines don’t see a thing and a screen reader will not be able to tell a someone who is unable to see the photo what that image looks like. It is important to have briefly descriptive, keyword rich phrases that describe what the image is about.
- Title Attribute: what the media library uses to find the image you are looking for when you do a search. This can make it easier to find later.