What Is Alt Text on an Image?

Alt text, or alternative text, is a brief description added to an image’s HTML code that serves two important purposes: accessibility and search engine optimization (SEO). 

For visually impaired users, alt text provides context about the image through screen readers, ensuring a more inclusive web experience. From an SEO perspective, alt text helps search engines understand the content of images, enabling them to appear in image search results and improve a page’s overall searchability.

This article discusses what an alt text is, its significance, and how to write effective alt text that enhances both user experience and website performance.

What is an Image Alt Text?

Alt text is a brief description, usually a few words or a short phrase, that conveys the meaning and context of an image. It's added to the HTML code of a webpage, specifically within the <img> alt tag, like this: <img src="image.jpg" alt="description of image">.

The primary purpose of alt text is to provide a text alternative for images that can be read aloud by screen readers. Screen readers are assistive devices used by visually impaired users to navigate and understand web content. When a screen reader encounters an image with alt text, it will read the description aloud, allowing the user to comprehend the image's content and purpose.

In addition to its accessibility benefits, alt text serves as a backup for users when an image fails to load due to slow internet connections, broken image links, or other technical issues. In these cases, the alt text will display in place of the image, providing users with a description of what they would have seen.

Furthermore, search engines like Google use alt text to better understand and index the images on your website. Since search engine crawlers cannot “see” images the way humans do, they rely on alt text to determine an image's content and relevance to the page. By including relevant keywords in your alt text, you can improve your chances of ranking in image search results and driving additional organic traffic to your site.

Benefits of Using Alt Text

Alt text offers several key benefits that make it an essential part of any well-designed website.

Improves Accessibility

Alt text enables visually impaired users to understand the content of images on your site. When a screen reader encounters an image with alt text, it reads the description aloud, allowing users to comprehend the image's meaning and context. This ensures that all users, regardless of their visual abilities, can fully engage with your content.

Enhances User Experience

In situations where images fail to load due to slow internet connections or broken links, alt text provides context for users. Instead of seeing a blank space or a broken image icon, users will read the alt text description, maintaining the flow of your content and improving their overall experience on your site.

Improves SEO

Search engines like Google use alt text to understand and index the images on your website. Including relevant keywords in your alt text helps search engines determine an image's content and relevance to the page, potentially improving your rankings in image search results. This can drive additional organic traffic to your site, as users searching for specific images may discover your content through image search.

When to Use Alt Text

While it's generally a good practice to include alt text for all images on your website, there are certain situations where it's especially important. Use alt text for informative and functional images that convey essential content or serve a specific purpose on the page. These images might include product photos in an e-commerce store, infographics that visualize data or explain complex concepts, or logos that represent your brand.

On the other hand, you can skip alt text for purely decorative images that don't add any meaningful content to the page. These might include background patterns, ornamental graphics, or images used solely for visual appeal.

How to Add Alt Text in Different Platforms

Adding alt text to your images is a straightforward process, but the exact steps may vary depending on the platform you're using. Let's take a look at how to add alt text in some of the most popular content management systems.

WordPress

Adding alt text in WordPress is simple and can be done directly through the media library or when uploading images to your posts or pages. To add alt text in the media library, go to Media > Library, select the image, and fill in the Alt Text field in the image details section. If you're working within a post or page, click on the image and then use the Block Settings on the right-hand panel to add alt text. WordPress also supports plugins like Yoast SEO to streamline image optimization and ensure all images are tagged effectively.

Shopify

For e-commerce businesses using Shopify, adding alt text enhances both accessibility and SEO for product images. To add alt text, navigate to your Products page in the admin dashboard, click on the product, and then select the image you want to edit. In the Edit Image section, add a descriptive alt text in the provided field. Shopify ensures alt text is seamlessly incorporated into product pages, improving your site’s visibility in image search results and making your store more accessible to all users.

Webflow

To add alt text in Webflow, navigate to the Assets Panel, locate the image you want to optimize, and click the Settings icon. In the settings panel, you’ll find a field labeled Alt Text, where you can enter a descriptive text for the image.

If you’re working with dynamic content like CMS collections, Webflow allows you to set alt text for images dynamically by binding the alt attribute to a CMS field. This is particularly useful for large-scale websites with frequent updates, ensuring that all images have appropriate alt text without manual edits.

Squarespace

Squarespace allows you to add alt text by editing an image block. Select the image, click Edit, and then fill in the Filename field with your alt text. Unlike some platforms, Squarespace uses this field for both alt text and SEO purposes, so ensure it is descriptive and keyword-rich. For gallery or portfolio pages, alt text can be added through the Gallery Block Settings.

Wix

On Wix, adding alt text is managed through the media manager. Select an image, click Settings, and enter your description in the Alt Text field. Wix also provides SEO tools that guide you through optimizing images for better search visibility. You can edit images for individual pages or apply alt text site-wide for consistency.

Magento

For Magento users, alt text can be added through the Admin Panel. Navigate to the Catalog > Products section, click on a product, and select the image you want to edit. In the Image Management area, locate the Alt Text field and input your description. Magento supports bulk editing for alt text, making it easier to optimize large product catalogs efficiently.

Alt Text Best Practices

When crafting alt text for your images, keep these five best practices in mind to ensure your descriptions are effective and user-friendly.

1. Keep It Brief

Aim for concise alt text that conveys the essential information about the image. Screen readers typically cut off alt text around 125 characters, so keep your descriptions short and sweet. If you need to provide more context, consider using the surrounding text or captions to supplement your alt text.

2. Be Descriptive and Specific

While brevity is important, don't sacrifice clarity for the sake of being concise. Use specific, descriptive language that accurately conveys what the image depicts. For example, instead of "dog," write "golden retriever playing fetch in a park." This level of detail helps users visualize the image and understand its relevance to the content.

3. Incorporate Keywords Naturally

When possible, include relevant keywords in your alt text to improve your SEO. However, avoid keyword stuffing or forcing keywords where they don't belong. Search engines penalize websites that use manipulative tactics, so prioritize creating alt text that is helpful and informative for users. If a keyword fits naturally into your description, great! If not, focus on accurately describing the image.

4. Avoid Starting with "Image of" or "Picture of"

Screen readers already identify images as such, so there's no need to include "image of" or "picture of" in your alt text. Doing so wastes valuable character space and can make your descriptions sound repetitive. Instead, jump right into describing the content of the image.

5. Prioritize Important Images

While it's ideal to include alt text for all of your images, prioritize those that convey important information or serve a specific function on the page. This includes product photos, infographics, charts, and graphs. Decorative images that don't add meaningful content to the page can be marked as such using an empty alt attribute (alt="").

How to Optimize Alt Text with AI

Optimizing alt text is essential for both accessibility and SEO, but it can become a tedious task, especially when dealing with large numbers of images. This is where AI comes in, offering a powerful solution to automate and enhance the process. AI tools can generate descriptive, keyword-rich alt texts quickly and consistently, ensuring that your images are optimized to improve search rankings and provide a better user experience for visually impaired audiences.

AirOps provides a cutting-edge solution to streamline alt text optimization through our Alt Text Growth Template. This template uses advanced AI and computer vision models to analyze image content and automatically generate accurate, rich descriptions. With the platform’s integration capabilities, AirOps allows you to scrape image URLs directly from your website, process them in bulk, and produce alt text at scale—all in a matter of minutes.

The Alt Text Growth Template is not only fast but also highly customizable. It lets you review and approve the AI-generated tags to ensure they align with your brand voice and SEO strategy. Whether you're managing an e-commerce store with thousands of product images or a blog with extensive media, AirOps helps you save time while ensuring that every image contributes to your SEO goals. By leveraging AI, you can take the guesswork out of alt text creation and focus on driving traffic and accessibility improvements for your site.

Make alt text optimization effortless with AirOps. Start building today.

Final Thoughts - Is Alt Text Worth Implementing?

Implementing alt text is a low-effort, high-impact way to optimize your website for accessibility, user experience, and SEO. Alt text makes your images accessible to visually impaired users who rely on screen readers, ensuring that everyone can engage with your content. It also provides context for users when images fail to load, improving the overall user experience on your site.

From an SEO perspective, alt text helps search engines understand and index your images, potentially improving your rankings in image search results and driving additional organic traffic to your site. Tools like AirOps' AI-powered platform streamline the process of generating and managing alt text at scale, making it easy to optimize your entire website's images without manual effort. 

Improve accessibility and rankings with minimal effort with AirOps. Sign up today.