About Alt Text

People who are beginning to create a website may think alt text is an unnecessary feature since many users do not directly see the words. Alt text, however, is one important way to improve a site’s SEO. Through it, you can improve your websites ranking through Google images. Alt text also provides a useful link anchor for Google to properly index the image and linked page. When a image fails to load properly, it can be a failsafe and reduces viewers frustrations if the image doesn’t load.

Accessibility

Although Alt text is very useful for SEO, it also helps the visually impaired. Originally, the feature was created to help visually impaired people consume digital media. Screen readers read aloud the text to help them understand the image and give them context. Overall, the extra text improves a website’s accesibility, which appeals to search engines.

Finally, alt text is legally required for many organizations and regions. Both ADA (American Disability Act) and EAA (European Accessibility Act) require alt text.

Common Practices

1. Keep it short: 1-2 sentences or a short phrase
2. Don’t start with phrases like “image of” or “picture of”.
3. Don’t repeat information already mentioned in the surrounding text.
4. To help screen readers, punctuate and capitalize images correctly.
5. For more complicated images, such as graphs or diagrams, use a concise description and explain more context elsewhere.
6. Avoid Keyword stuffing

Example

A florist shop wants to increase customer traffic outside of Valentine’s Day and usual holidays. The business wants to normalize buying flowers and convince customers to buy more bouquets. One way the shop could increase visability is writing about how a customers can decorate their home with simple bouquets.

Another person, who wants some ideas about decorating her house, may look on google images for some decoration ideas. She could click on the image and find the florist.