Search engines cannot read images.  Therefore, it is vitally important to provide the written information about the image in the mark-up script. There are a number of places where the search engine may look at when indexing images:

• alt attributes in the image tag
• title attributes in the image tag
• surrounding text
• div or span 'bracket'

The alt attribute is best known and most important place to include descriptive text for the image. However, the title attribute is too often forgotten. The title attribute is one of the, standard attributes of the image tag yet it is far too often forgotten in web design. Just visit any site and look at the source, you will be surprised at how seldom the title attribute is use with the image tag. Yet the title attribute is an obvious descriptor for the image. CreatorSEO™ always advises site owners to include both the alt attribute and the title attribute in every img tag.

Another little known fact and non SEO reason to include title tags is that Internet Explorer 8 and below does not show the alt attribute when hovering over the image, yet it does show the title attribute.

Bracketing an image in a div or span 'bracket' forms a closer association of the enclosed image with any associated text in the div or span bracket. Once again, a relevant title attribute should be assigned to the div or span tag to further emphasise the key topic words.