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I LOVED your golfing
story. Read every word. You're a wonderful writer.
(Peter Bowerman, the Well-Fed Writer)
Big Things rule! ... and the video
of the Airbus is great. (Jim McDonald,
Birmingham, UK)
Having enjoyed reading your
biographical, They
can't take that away from me... I
would love to post your article (for my) course for
seniors entitled Autobiography and Journaling ... and
let them read your article as a good example of what
I call the reader's writer, clearly expressed and easy
to read. (Howell)
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bet on two flies crawling up a wall? Now I know
better! (Bill Denham, Chicago, USA)
I enjoy reading your page
every week, Jennifer, it's never boring and there's always
something to bring a smile to my face! (Kenny Dima,
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help clarify
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USA)
Your story about the evil
glasses made my day :) (Edith, Derbyshire, UK)
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your Latin
quote of the week. (Paul, Mexico City, Mexico)
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marionettes are everywhere! Thanks for another great
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course. (Dave Wagner, Sacramento, US)
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missive is the introduction to Australian
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County, CANADA)
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was using google for once, twice, thrice
and quince, and found this page, great ;) (Marv, Zwolle,
NETHERLANDS)
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Keep going. (David Vasnaik, Bangalore, INDIA)
Read
more testimonials ...
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originally found this site after searching for
clarification on a contentious
point amongst work colleagues. Just had to look at old
issues and now look forward to Fridays (Juliet Wallace,
Manchester, ENGLAND)
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The Saga
of the alt tags... 1998
by
Jennifer Stewart
 I
need help to get my site listed on Google
Not that long ago, my
experience with computers was limited to basic
word processing, and the most technical term I
knew was, "Load game".
Today, I maintain
my own simple website and I roam the internet
with confidence.
In the months in
between, I gained more worry lines and lost more
sleep than I ever did when my children were
teenagers!
Most of my
frustration was due to the lack of any simple
instructions on how to do the most basic things.
Allow me to illustrate with the Saga of the alt
tags....
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After creating a
killer of a website, complete (or should that be
"replete"?) with dancing raisins, gold
fish swimming in bowls, bounding panthers, five
different fonts on every page and a flock
of birds that flew from one side of my page to
the other (is that cool, or what?!) - I decided
that I'd log on to one of those sites that
offered a free assessment of web pages.
I couldn't
understand 90% of the report, but one point did
penetrate, and that was the warning that I
should use "alt tags".
I was convinced of
the need to use alt tags (I'd received so many
"warnings"); I was willing to use alt
tags; I was desperate to use alt tags - but what
on earth were alt tags?
I scoured the Help
files on all my programs; I visited all the
message boards and help forums I could find; I
instigated searches on the internet's finest
search engines .....
Every source told
me that I should definitely use alt tags, without
explaining what they were.
As the time
decreased and the frustration increased, I
finally found out that alt tags were the
alternative names for images and that they
should provide a description of the image.
I dutifully went
through, typing in names for every image on my
site..."red bullet; black square bullet;
black round bullet; black squiggly bullet
......."
This seemed
totally pointless - but I'd been told by the
web's finest to include the name of each image
and who was I to argue?
A couple of weeks
later, I happened to be viewing the source code
for a site that was number one in a search
listing, when I noticed that their alt
tags included the name of their site.
Clever!
I spent another
few hours, changing all my alt tags to read,
"mysite red bullet; mysite black square
bullet ...."
This nagged at me,
however; it seemed a bit too close to trying to
fool the search engines for my comfort.
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It wasn't until
another month had passed that I read yet another
article that explained why alt tags were
necessary. It seems that many people turn off the
images on their browsers and the alt tags show up
in place of the missing goldfish, birds etc.
Suddenly, it all
made sense - there was actually a logical reason
to include alt tags - they weren't names
or descriptions, they were captions. (I
have to confess, that I haven't added 'captions'
to all my bullets this time - I know it's
possible to use "invisible tags" - alt="
" - but I haven't quite had time to do
it .... it's next on my list ...)
So, now when you
visit my
site, you'll notice that my alt
tags are phrases that tell you something about
what the site has to offer, "Professional
writing services," "Home study
tutorials," "Improve your writing"
and so on.
And it only took
me four months to discover this!
How many millions
of hours have been spent in fruitless searches
for such simple problems? We could have found the
answer to the meaning of life in less time!
If you're
struggling to get started, come by and see how I
can help you.
Read the
sequel!
The
Saga Continues...
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