What is Alt Text & How to Add Alt Text on Images?

Images on your website aren’t just there to look nice. Images on the web serve a purpose. Several, actually.

In fact, they can be a significant source of organic traffic. As of 2024, 20.4% of Google’s SERP includes images. They bring in traffic using something called an alt text.

Alt text, aka alt tags or alt descriptions, is the little text you get when you hover over an image. It’s the copy that replaces an image on a webpage if the image fails to load.

The alt text lives in your HTML code. Alt text on images are not just captions. Here are some of the things alt texts help with:

• Alternative to images – If an image fails to load, alt text displays in its place.
• Image SEO – Alt text is indexed by search engine bots, which helps them understand the contents of the image and the page it’s in.
• Context – Alt text helps Google understand the context of images, especially when specific details are not that obvious.
• Accessibility – Alt text makes images accessible for search users from low-bandwith areas and screen readers.
• User experience – In case you didn’t know, missing alt text accounts for a huge chunk of all homepage accessibility errors.
• Google Images ranking – Alt text effects how your images rank in Google Image search.
• Anchor text for image links – Alt text also serves as anchor text when images are linked.

Is Alt Text on Images Important?

How important are alt texts for images? Do you really have to include them?

Accessibility & User Experience

Alt text (also known as alt tags or alt descriptions) are responsible for making your content accessible to search users.

If images fail to load, screen readers use alt text to describe images.

Well written alt texts provide a seamless user experience when images don’t load. With a descriptive alt text, search users won’t be left waiting or guessing.

Image SEO

Alt text can improve your organic ranking on Google Image Search (or other image search engines).

Relevant keywords in the alt text helps Google understand what the content is about and improves your ranking in image search results.

Every time an user finds an image result, if it is your image, they’ll find your page cited for that image. This can become a source of additional organic traffic to your website.

Alt text also helps search engines crawl your website more efficiently.

Optimizing your image alt text contributes to higher visibility in search engine results. Relevant alt text helps them understand the content of your images. 

Nearly 21% of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) now display images.

By optimizing your website’s image alt text, you tap into this additional organic traffic source.

Relevance to Search Queries

Search engines like Google use the words on a page to understand its content.

Alt text provides additional context that can help search engines understand not just the page, but also the specific content of the images.

This can enhance the relevance of your page to specific search queries, potentially improving your page’s search ranking.

How Does Alt Text on Images Effect Organic Rankings?

Alt text can help your images rank better in Google Images, which can ultimately drive more organic traffic to your page.

Anchor text is the text you see in the clickable portion of a link. In the case of image links, alt text also serve as the anchor text.

A good, SEO optimised anchor text can boost the link authority of your page.

Link authority is the strength of a link, and measures the contribution of a link to your website’s organic ranking.

Examples of Good and Bad Alt Text on Images

Examples of Good Alt Text

“A cat licking milk out of a bowl.”

“A platter of butter naan.”

“A running track with an athlete in a red shirt.”

A good alt text should be descriptive, contextual, concise and should sufficiently explain the content of an image.

Examples of Bad Alt Text

Anything like “Cat123.jpg” or “Sunset” or “Food” are bad examples of alt texts.

Vague, general, irrelevant or complex content are bad ideas for alt text. Keep it simple, clear and concise.

Don’t try to fill the alt text with general descriptions like “this is a picture of a dog”. Don’t use “picture of” or “image of” to describe the alt text.

How to Add Alt Text on Images?

By Editing the HTML Code

When you add image elements to the HTML copy, add the alt text inside the <img> tag using the alt attribute.

For example:

<img src=“image.jpg” alt=“Alt text goes here”>

Using a CMS (Content Management System)

You can easily add alt texts on your content management system without having to edit the HTML code.

The option to add alt texts will be available whenever you upload or paste images into your posts.

Add Alt Text on Images Using WordPress

1. Go to your WordPress post editor and select Add Media.
2. Upload the image you want to use.
3. Once uploaded, you’ll see the Attachment Details section on the right side of the screen.
4. There you’ll find a field labeled Alt Text. Enter your alt text here.

You can also simply copy and paste an image into your posts. Click on the image and enter the alt text in the Post sidebar.

Image SEO Checklist for Adding Alt Text on Images

1 – Use a Specific Image Description

Keep your alt text specific and concise. Don’t use phrases like “picture of” or “photo of” to fill out the description.

Be precise and but sufficiently descriptive. It should be clear what the image represents. For instance, if the image shows a white cat, the alt text should reflect this specificity.

2 – Include Contextual Information

The alt text of an image should be related to the overall content of the page as well as the text surrounding the image.

Ask yourself: Is the alt text related to the image? Is it related to the page content? Does it contribute any additional information about the image content or the page content?

The alt text should match the context of the page and cannot be irrelevant to its topics.

For product images, the alt text should provide all essential and relevant information about the respective products.

3 – Stay Within the Character Limit

Keep your alt text within 125 characters.

Aim for shorter, concise but descriptive alt texts. Avoid long descriptions which are not accessibility-friendly and adds a lot of unnecessary information to your pages.

Provide essential information only.

4 – Use Your Target Keyword in the Alt Text

Use the target keyword in the alt text along with any other relevant keywords, preferrably near the front of the alt text.

But don’t make the mistake every beginner does: stuffing keywords in an alt text and thinking that’ll boost your SEO.

All that’ll do is confuse search engines crawling your page. The keywords used in the alt text should accurately describe the image.

Also avoid stuffing the alt texts of every image in your post with the same keyword.

And just like with everything else on the page, keep it natural-sounding.

5 – Check Spelling and Grammar

Check your alt text for any grammatical or spelling mistakes. Well-written alt text improves user experience.

Mistakes can negatively impact user accessbility and image SEO.

6 – Skip it For Decorative Images

Not all images need an alt text. Use an alt text to describe any meaningful images.

If you’re usign any decorative images, it’s better to leave the alt text blank.

To-Do’s For Writing Alt Text on Images

• Give clear and accurate descriptions of your images.
• Use the target keyword along with relevant keywords if any.
• The description should be relevant to the surrounding content.
• Put important keywords at the beginning.
• Keep it short, sweet and straightforward. Avoid length descriptions.
• It should sound natural, not keyword-stuffed.
• Skip the obvious. Don’t mention things like “It’s an image of XYZ”.
• To write a longer alt text, use the longdesc attribute.
• Skip the obvious, no need to state that it’s an image or a photo.
• Add alt text to other elements in your page as well like logos and buttons.
• Proofread your alt text.

Adding Alt Text on Images: What Not to Do

• Don’t stuff keywords in your alt txt. Not only does such alt texts lack use and meaning, they can also confuse the search engine when crawling your site.
• Alt text should be specific and meaningful. Avoid descriptions with generic words like “image”.
• Don’t SKIP the alt text. It has potential to bring you extra organic traffic!
• Use relevant descriptions only. Either describe the image or its purpose.
• Don’t repeat the same alt texts. Also don’t use the image caption as an alt text. Alt texts should provide additional information.
• Be descriptive but brief. Stick to under 125 characters.

5 Tools to Optimize Alt Text on Images

1 – Image Recognition

If you’re not sure what your images are, Google’s Cloud Vision API and Amazon Rekognition are tools that can help identify objects, people, text, scenes, and activities in images, and provide a basic description that can be used as a starting point for writing alt text.

2 – SEO Optimization Tools

Tools like Yoast SEO and SEMrush can provide suggestions for optimizing alt text. For example, if you have an image of a golden retriever on a blog about dogs, these tools might suggest including “golden retriever” and “dog” in your alt text.

3 – Grammar and Readability Checkers

Grammarly and Hemingway Editor can help your keep your alt texts concise, accurate and readable. If your alt text is “A person is stand next to a old car”, Grammarly might suggest correcting it to “A person is standing next to an old car”.

4 – Alt Text Length Checkers

Websites like charactercountonline.com allow you to check the length of your alt text. If your alt text is “A person standing next to a vintage red car with a shiny surface and white-walled tires under a clear blue sky”, these tools might suggest shortening it to “A person standing next to a vintage red car”.

5 – Alt Text Testing Tools

Tools like WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool or the Accessibility Insights for Web browser extension can be used to test how your alt text is read by a screen reader or displayed on a low-bandwidth connection.

FAQs

Is alt text necessary on images?

Yes, alt text is necessary on images. It provides a textual description of an image for users who can’t perceive visual content, such as visually impaired users who use screen readers.

It also helps search engines understand the image’s content.

Does alt text impact SEO?

Yes, alt text impacts SEO. It provides better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index and rank an image properly in image search.

It also provides search engines with contextual information about the content on the page.

Does alt text matter to Google generative AI?

While there’s no direct evidence that alt text matters to Google’s generative AI, alt text is important for Google’s search engine algorithms.

It helps these algorithms understand the content and context of images, which can influence how a page is indexed and ranked.

Where can I generate alt texts?

There are several tools available online that can generate alt text for images.

Some of these include the AI Image Alt Text Generator by Ahrefs, AltText.ai, and other tools listed on Softlist.io.

What are some alt text examples?

Here are a few examples of good alt text:

“Group of people on a train station.”

“Happy baby playing in a sand box.”

“Five people in line at a supermarket.”

“The Statue of Liberty in New York against a cloudy blue sky.”

Why is alt text important for SEO?

Alt text is important for SEO because it helps search engine crawlers understand the image’s subject matter. This can enhance their understanding of your content and therefore lead to higher rankings.

How to write alt texts?

When writing alt text, make sure to convey the content and the purpose of an image in a concise and unambiguous manner.

The alt text shouldn’t be longer than a sentence or two—most of the time a few thoughtfully selected words will do.

Avoid stuffing keywords into the alt text as it won’t help your web page rank for these stuffed keywords.

What is alt text for accessibility?

Alt text, or alternative text, is a short description of an image that assistive devices may read aloud or convert to Braille.

It provides an alternative for users who can’t perceive visual content, making websites more inclusive.