Using the Image SEO Features in All in One SEO

Are you looking to automatically set the image Alt text, title attribute, caption, description, and filename for all images in the content of your posts and pages?

If you’ve got a lot of images in your content, then this article will help you easily control them, which is important for SEO.

Tutorial Video

Activating the Image SEO Addon

To get started, click on Search Appearance in the All in One SEO menu and then click on the Image SEO tab.

Image SEO tab under Search Appearance

Scroll down to the Image SEO section. Click on the Activate Image SEO button to activate this feature.

Activate Image SEO button on the Media tab of the Search Appearance settings

You should now see the Image SEO settings.

Image SEO settings in All in One SEO

You’ll see there are tabs at the top for Title, Alt Tag, Caption, Description, and Filename.

The settings on each tab are similar. Here are the details of each setting:

Title Format

The title attribute is displayed when you mouse over an image in content. This helps your visitors understand what your image is about, and therefore it helps search engines too.

You can set the format that will be used to automatically generate title attributes for images in your content.

Click on one of our smart tags shown above the Title Format field.

Title Format field in Image SEO settings

You can also type the hash character ( # ) in the field to display a list of available tags you can choose from.

You can also enter text in the Title Format field or combine text with the smart tags.

Strip Punctuation

Enable the Strip Punctuation setting to see a list of characters that can be removed from the title attributes generated by All in One SEO.

Strip Punctuation setting for Title attributes

Select the characters you want to be stripped from your title attributes. You can also choose whether to convert spaces to dashes or underscores.

There’s a Strip Punctuation setting on each of the tabs, enabling you to control which characters you want stripped from each image attribute.

Casing

Casing setting for Title attributes

The Casing setting enables you to select how you want your title attribute casing. The choices are:

  • Disabled: All in One SEO won’t change the casing of your title attributes.
  • Lower Case: Title attributes will be changed to lower case.
  • Title Case: Major words will be capitalized and minor words will remain unchanged.
  • Sentence Case: The first word of each sentence will be capitalized.

There’s a Casing setting on each of the tabs, enabling you to control the casing for each image attribute.

Exclude Posts / Pages

You can use this field to exclude any post, page, or other post type from All in One SEO changing the title attribute of images in the content.

In the Exclude Posts / Pages field, start typing the title of any post, page, or other post type in this field and a drop down will appear that shows matching content. Click on the content you want to exclude and it will be added in the field.

Typing the title of a page in the Exclude Posts / Pages field

There’s an Exclude Posts / Pages setting on the Alt Tag tab, enabling you to exclude posts and pages from having their Alt text managed by All in One SEO.

Exclude Term

You can use this field to exclude any post or other post type in that term from All in One SEO changing the title attribute of images in the content.

In the Exclude Terms field, type the name of any category, tag, or other taxonomy term and a drop down will appear that shows matching content. Click on the content you want to exclude and it will be added in the field.

Exclude Terms setting in General Sitemap Advanced Settings

There’s an Exclude Terms setting on the Alt Tag tab, enabling you to exclude posts and pages from having their Alt text managed by All in One SEO.

Alt Tag Format

The Alt tag attribute is used to display text that describes the image if it can’t be rendered by the browser. Its primary goal is to make images more accessible to visually impaired users, but it’s also used as a ranking factor by search engines.

You can set the format that will be used to automatically generate Alt text for images in your content.

Click on one of our smart tags shown above the Alt Tag Format field.

Alt Tag Format field in Image SEO settings

You can also type the hash character ( # ) in the field to display a list of available tags you can choose from.

You can also enter text in the Alt Tag Format field or combine text with the smart tags.

Autogenerate Caption on Upload

Enable this setting to have All in One SEO automatically generate a caption when new images are uploaded.

Autogenerate Caption on Upload setting in Image SEO settings

If you disable this setting, you can still generate captions in the Media Library via our bulk action described below.

Caption Format

The image caption is text that’s displayed beneath an image that describes the image. It’s visible to your visitors so it helps them understand the image.

You can set the format that will be used to automatically generate caption text for images in your content.

Click on one of our smart tags shown above the Caption Format field.

Caption Format field in Image SEO settings

You can also type the hash character ( # ) in the field to display a list of available tags you can choose from.

You can also enter text in the Caption Format field or combine text with the smart tags.

Autogenerate Description on Upload

Enable this setting to have All in One SEO automatically generate a description when new images are uploaded.

Autogenerate Description on Upload setting in Image SEO settings

If you disable this setting, you can still generate descriptions in the Media Library via our bulk action described below.

Description Format

The image description is text that’s displayed on an image attachment page which is a special page that WordPress displays for images.

You can set the format that will be used to automatically generate caption text for images in your content.

Click on one of our smart tags shown above the Description Format field.

Description Format field in Image SEO settings

You can also type the hash character ( # ) in the field to display a list of available tags you can choose from.

You can also enter text in the Description Format field or combine text with the smart tags.

Words to Strip

Use the Words to Strip field to enter words you want stripped from your image filenames.

Enter one word per line and All in One SEO will remove them from the filename of images.

Words to Strip field  in Image SEO settings

Media Library Bulk Action

When you change Autogenerate Caption on Upload or Autogenerate Description on Upload settings, you can apply this to images already in your Media Library by using our bulk action.

To do this, go to your Media Library and switch to the list view as shown below:

List view shown in the WordPress Media Library

Now you can use the checkboxes next to each image to select the images you want to change.

Once you’ve selected your images, click on the Bulk actions drop down and select Autogenerate image attributes.

Autogenerate image attributes bulk action in the WordPress Media Library

Click Apply to apply the changes.

Available to customers on the Business License and above

Image SEO module in All in One SEO ProThe Image SEO module is a premium feature that enables you to globally control the Title Attribute and Alt Text for attachment pages and images that are embedded in your content.  These can be set based on a specified format, similar to the Title Format settings in the General Settings menu.

Below are the options in the Image SEO module:

Title Attribute Format

This field enables you to set how your image Title Attributes will be generated by All in One SEO.

For example, you may want all your Image Title Attributes to include your Post Title followed by your Site Title.  In this case, you can use the appropriate macros from the list below in the Title Attribute Format field.

Here is the list of supported macros you can use:

  • %image_title%
         The title of your image as shown in the Media Library
  • %site_title%
         Your site title as shown under Settings > General > Site Title
  • %site_description%
         Your site description as shown under Settings > General > Tagline
  • %image_seo_title%
         The SEO title set for your image in the Media Library
  • %image_seo_description%
         The SEO description set for your image in the Media Library
  • %post_seo_title%
         The SEO title set for your post or page
  • %post_seo_description%
         The SEO description set for your post or page
  • %alt_tag%
         The Alt Text for your image as shown in the Media Library
  • %post_title%
         The title of the post or page
  • %category_title%
         The name/title of your category
  • %post_date%
         The date when the image was published (localized)
  • %post_year%
         The year when the image was published (localized)
  • %post_month%
         The month when the image was published (localized)
  • %tax_product_cat%
         The title of your WooCommerce Product Category
  • %tax_product_tag%
         The title of your WooCommerce Product Tag

Any of the macros above can be used in combination with each other or with your own text.

Strip Punctuation For Title Attributes

This option will strip all punctuation marks such as commas, periods, semicolons, etc. from the Title Attributes that All in One SEO generates for your images. This also applies to non-Latin languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, etc.

Alt Tag Attribute Format

This field works the same way as the Title Attribute Format field above.  It enables you to set how your image Alt Text will be created by All in One SEO.  The same macros (see above) can be used in this field.

Strip Punctuation For Alt Tag Attributes

This option will strip all punctuation marks such as commas, periods, semicolons, etc. from the Alt Text that All in One SEO generates for your images. This also applies to non-Latin languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, etc.

Image Sitemap

The XML Sitemap module in All in One SEO includes an Image Sitemap by default.  Images in your content are automatically included in the XML Sitemap and are submitted to Google, Bing and other search engines.  If you wish to disable this feature, you can do so by enabling the Exclude Images setting.

Further Reading

For more information about how Image Alt Text and Title Attributes can improve your on-site SEO, please read this WP Beginner article on Image Alt Text vs Image Title.