I asked the Question!

1. 93

   sallybeaposted 7 years ago

   Could you tell me definitively if I should add a Caption to the images in my Tutorials?
   Staff gave the reply:-
   You don't have to but it helps your images be found in Google Image Search which can drive a lot of traffic, especially on craft articles where people want to see images.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I agree.  Just note that the answer relates to CAPTIONS, which is the wording that shows UNDER your photos.  Not the HEADINGS which is the wording that shows ABOVE the photos.

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      1. 93

         sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Marisa for the clarification. That is helpful for everyone including me.

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2. 97

   eugbugposted 7 years ago

   If I can "hijack" your question Sally, I would also like to know whether capsule sub-titles should be added to photo capsules? Sometimes a caption is sufficient if nothing much has to be said about a photo, and adding a capsule sub-title seems like duplication?

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      Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      If you happen to want an H2 header at that point in your article why not use a caption header? On the other hand, I would be wary of using too many keywords in too many H2 headers.

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         sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I tend to agree which is why I posed the question.  I got the feeling that sometimes it looks like keyword stuffing but if you did not fill it in, there was a gap where a heading was being asked for!   I just thought it was there to be filled in but it does not always look great.

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            Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Glad it helped, although I obviously meant to say picture capsule header, lol. They bury the captions somehow.
            
            Congrats on the award, by the way.

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               sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you, much appreciated.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I think the point we were making on your Hub was that, if you look at them, the headings on photos look exactly the same as the main headings in your text.
            
            If you're writing a long article and someone is trying to find the right section by looking at your headings, then having the same headings on the photos gets awfully confusing.

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            1. 93

               sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I completely agree with you, Marisa.  I am going to try to go back sometime and do something about that.  New Hubs are being written with this in mind:)

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      sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I agree, eubug.  I have come to the conclusion that if the photo has no info written below it, I am inclined to add one above.  Sometimes adding both seems a little too much and I was pretty much guilty of doing that in all my earlier hubs so I am testing my hubs with one below and not one above.  Think it depends on the subject matter that you are writing about as well.
      .

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         EricDockettposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         It's important to realize the difference between these two fields from an SEO perspective.
         
         Here on HP our image captions also serve as image alt tags. These tell a search engine what's in the image, and that's why staff said you can get traffic to the Hub by the images appearing in search. But, if you want that traffic, it helps to use a descriptive caption for the image.
         
         The image title is an H2 header tag, the same as on our text capsules or any other capsule for that matter. I try to avoid using H2s for capsules like images and amazon, etc, because too many H2 tags with the same keywords can sometimes be seen as stuffing (as Will said). To sidestep the issue altogether, I try to stick with a limited number of H2s in any one Hub.
         
         So, image titles and captions are not interchangeable, as far as search engines are concerned. Knowing how search engines see them can help you better decide how and when to use them.

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            sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I am sure you are right, thanks.

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