Although there is a lot of information about this, website owners very often neglect it. On one hand, OpenCart has everything for this and image attributes are present in the templates. And "template writers" definitely take this into account.
But! Unfortunately, there is a complete lack of management of these attributes, that is, it is impossible to set your own value.
The question arises, is this really that important?
Do you want more organic traffic? You can get it from image search.
It should be noted that search engines index ALT and Title attributes (to be precise – they index the information in these attributes). Even if they are absent or do not contain information, indexing occurs based on the surrounding text, but is the environment always relevant when it is located on a product photo?
You will not get the only correct recommendations on filling attributes here, here – only tips. Each product, each store is unique, and each store should have an individual approach to SEO.
Agree that alt="Photo" will tell absolutely nothing about the product - so the example is bad. Sometimes, it's better to leave it empty, alt="", especially if it's an image for design.
The most acceptable option is alt="Product name" - this is what is implemented in the OC standard. Bad or good? I would say - average. That is, the information is there, but it isn't. Here's an example:
alt="Canon 3D" - there's no need to explain what Canon is, but what kind of device this is from the attribute is unknown
alt="Canon 3D camera"
- is already better, and even better
alt="Canon 3D DSLR camera"
If you try hard enough, you can improve the previous one:
alt="Canon 3D DSLR camera - body color black"
or
alt="Canon 3D DSLR camera - body color black - at Photography Equipment store"
And you can also overdo it:
alt="Canon 3D DSLR camera - buy camera, black camera"
Do you want to be punished by the search engine for overspamming, over-optimization?
The presence of attributes in additional images is also quite important. And you need to have extended capabilities here's an example
Canon 3D DSLR camera - rear view
Canon 3D DSLR camera - top view
Perhaps the example given is not correct - the user will not search for the phrase "Canon 3D DSLR camera - top view". But when viewing slides, you provide an informative caption to the image.
