Alt Text: How to Use it Properly?

Let’s talk about something cool called Alt text for the images on your website. Imagine you have a picture on your website—like a cute puppy. Now, search engines like Google and people who use screen readers (special tools for those who can’t see well) can’t actually “see” the picture like we do. That’s where alt text comes in!

Alt text is a short description you add to your images that tells search engines and screen readers what the picture is about. So, if you have a picture of a puppy, your alt text might say, “A cute brown puppy playing with a ball.” This helps search engines understand your website better and can even make your site show up higher in search results that’s what we call SEO(Search Engine Optimization). It’s super important because it helps connect ideas and content on your site, making it easier for everyone to understand. So, whenever you put an image on your website, don’t forget to add that little bit of alt text—it’s like giving your picture a voice! Cool, right?

This practical and to-the-point guide contains tips and advice you can immediately use to improve your website’s image SEO and accessibility.

What Is Alt Text?

Alternative text (or alt text) – also known as the alt attribute or the alt tag which is not technically correct because it is not a tag, it is simply a piece of text that describes the image in the HTML code.

What Are The Uses Of Alt Text?

Did you know that alt text was originally used just to describe an image when it couldn’t load on a website? A long time ago, the internet was really slow, and sometimes pictures were too big to load on your screen. When that happened, the alt text would pop up instead to tell you what the picture was about. Nowadays, images usually load without any problems. But if they don’t, you’ll still see the alt text instead of the picture.

Alt text does more than just that, though! It also helps search engines like Google understand what the image is about and how it fits into the rest of your website. And, even more importantly, alt text is super helpful for people who have disabilities. For example, someone using a screen reader (a tool that reads out loud what's on the screen) can’t “see” pictures, but the screen reader can read the alt text to them, so they know what the image is about.

Of course, like anything online, some people don’t use alt text the right way or try to trick search engines with it. But when used correctly, alt text is really important for making sure websites are accessible to everyone and easy for search engines to understand.

Let’s dive in and see why alt text is so important.

Why Alt Text Is Important?

Have you noticed how websites are full of pictures and cool graphics? It’s pretty hard to find a website without them, right? Well, that’s why alt text is so important! Alt text is like a secret tool that turns those pictures into words. This way, even people who can’t see the images—like those using screen readers—can still understand what’s on the website.

Plus, search engines like Google aren’t smart enough yet to fully understand what every picture means. So, alt text helps them figure it out, too! It makes sure that everyone, including people with disabilities and search engines, can know what the images are all about.

Why Alt Text Is Important For SEO?

Do you know why alt text is super important for your website? You know how when you search for pictures on Google, you find all sorts of images? Well, alt text helps your website’s images show up in those searches. This is a big deal, especially if you want people to find your site! When you use alt text the right way, it gives your website a better chance of showing up in Google image searches. And guess what? Google actually uses alt text as one of the things it looks at when deciding which images to show in search results.

This is especially important for websites like online stores. A lot of people start looking for products by searching for images on Google instead of typing in the product name. So, if your images don’t have proper alt text, Google might show fewer of your product pictures—or maybe none at all! If that happens, you could miss out on a lot of visitors and potential customers. So, taking care of alt text is key to making sure your website gets noticed and succeeds.

Why Alt Text Is Important For Accessibility?

The alt text is super important, not just for showing up in Google image searches but also for making websites accessible to everyone.

These days, there’s a lot more focus on making the web easy to use for everyone, including people with disabilities who might use screen readers to browse the internet. When you write alt text that actually describes what’s in an image, you’re helping people who can’t see the image understand what it’s about. This also helps them understand the whole web page better. For example, imagine you have a page on your website that’s all about doing an SEO audit, and it has a bunch of screenshots from different tools. Wouldn’t it be more helpful to describe what’s in each screenshot, instead of just using the same alt text like “SEO audit” for every image? That way, people who can’t see the images will still know what’s going on in each part of your guide. So, using alt text the right way makes your website better for everyone.

Alt Text Examples

Finding many good and bad examples of alt text is not difficult. Let me show you a few, sticking to the above example with an SEO audit guide.

Some good examples of alt text are:

• <img src=”google-search-console-coverage-report.jpg” alt=”The Coverage Report in Google Search Console showing the number of indexed and excluded pages”>
• <img src=”google-search-console.jpg” alt=”Google Search Console tool from Google”>
• <img src=”screaming-frog-html-pages.jpg” alt=”List of HTML pages in Screaming Frog”>
• <img src=”screaming-frog” alt=”Screaming Frog crawl in progress”>

Bad Or Spammy Alt Text Examples

I’ve also seen many examples of bad alt text use, including keyword stuffing or spamming.

Here is how you can turn the above good examples into bad examples:

• <img src=”google-search-console-coverage-report.jpg” alt=”seo audit free, seo audit cheap, seo audit specialist, seo audit, seo audits”>
• <img src=”google-search-console.jpg” alt=”google seo ,seo google, google, seo, google search console seo”>
• <img src=”screaming-frog-html-pages.jpg” alt=”seo auditor, seo audit, seo audits”>
• <img src=”screaming-frog” alt=”seo audit”>

So, if you look at those examples we talked about earlier, you’ll see they don’t really tell you what the pictures are about. It’s like trying to figure out a puzzle without all the pieces! But don’t worry! If you want to learn more about how to describe images better and get some cool tips on making your images easier to find on Google, you can check out Google Search Central. They have lots of helpful advice.

Common Alt Text Mistakes

Some of the common mistakes people make with alt text. It’s not just about stuffing keywords—there are other things to watch out for too!

Here are a few examples:

1. Not using alt text at all or leaving it blank. This means people won’t know what the image is if they can’t see it.
2. Using the same alt text for different images. Each image is unique, so it should have its own description.
3. Being too general with alt text. For example, just saying “dog” for a picture of a dog isn’t very helpful. It’s better to describe the dog—like what color it is, what it’s doing, or what breed it is.
4. Using the file name as alt text. Sometimes, people accidentally use the image’s file name, which can be confusing. Imagine seeing alt text like “photo2323” doesn’t really tell you what the image is about!

So, it’s important to make sure your alt text is clear, specific, and actually describes what’s in the picture. That way, everyone can understand it better.

Alt Text Writing Tips

Let’s go over some tips on how to write alt text the right way so that it actually does the job:

1. Don’t just throw in a bunch of keywords. That won’t help your webpage show up in searches.
2. Describe the image clearly but keep it short. You don’t need to write a whole paragraph—just a sentence or so is enough.
3. It’s okay to use your main keywords, but make sure they fit naturally into your description. If the keyword doesn’t really match what the picture is about, don’t use it.
4. Avoid putting text directly on images. Instead, include any important text in the alt text using HTML.
5. Don’t start with “this is an image of...” Everyone knows it’s an image! Just jump right into describing what’s in the picture.
6. Try to “see” the picture just by reading the alt text. If you can imagine the image based on the description, then you’ve done it right!

These tips will help make sure your alt text is helpful and easy for everyone to understand.

How To Troubleshoot Image Alt Text

Now that you know the best ways to write alt text and what mistakes to avoid, you might be wondering how to check the alt text on a website’s images.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Inspecting an image: You can right-click on an image and select "Inspect" to see if it has alt text. This is a quick way to check one image at a time.
2. Checking lots of images at once: If you want to see the alt text for all the images on a page, here’s what you can do:

• First, install the Web Developer extension on Chrome.
• Then, go to the page with the images you want to check.
• Click on the Web Developer tool, and then go to Images > Display Alt Attributes. This will show you the alt text for all the images on that page.

This way, you can easily see what alt text is being used for the images on a website.

How To Find And Fix Missing Alt Text

If you want to check the alt text for all the images on a whole website, you can use a special tool called a crawler. Two good ones are Screaming Frog and Sitebulb.

Here’s what you do:

1. Run the crawler: This tool will look through the whole website and find all the images.
2. Check the image report: After it’s done, you can look at a report that shows you all the images and their alt text.
3. Fix missing alt text: If you find any images without alt text, you can make a list and go back to add descriptions where they’re missing.

It’s like having a helper that makes sure every picture on the site has the right description!

So at the end Alt text might not seem like a big deal, but it’s actually really important! It’s like giving extra information about your pictures so everyone can understand them, whether they’re using screen readers or search engines.

Even though alt text mainly helps with image searches, it’s still important for helping search engines know what’s on your website. The more you help them understand, the better your site can show up in search results.

Plus, making your website easy for everyone to use, including people with disabilities, shows you care about being fair and helpful. That’s a big part of good digital marketing these days.