What Is Alt Text? How To Write Effective Alt Text? Why Alt Text Matters To SEO?
Today, nearly 19% of Google’s SERPs show images. That means, despite your best SEO efforts, you could still miss out on another organic traffic source: your website’s images. Using alt text is one way to capture this organic traffic source tap.
Alt text, also known as alternative text or alt attribute, is a brief description of an image that is displayed when the image cannot be loaded or viewed by the user. Alt text helps users who are visually impaired, use screen readers, have low bandwidth, or have disabled images in their browsers to understand the content and context of the image.
In 1999, W3C published its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 to explain how to make content more accessible for users with disabilities. One of these guidelines was to “Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.” It meant any web page with images (or movies, sounds, applets, etc.) should include equivalent information to its visuals or auditory content.
But alt text is not only useful for accessibility reasons. It also plays an important role in search engine optimisation (SEO), which is the process of improving the visibility and relevance of a website or a web page in the organic search results of a search engine.
How Does Alt Text Affect SEO?
Search engines, such as Google or Bing, use complex algorithms to crawl, index, and rank web pages based on various factors, such as keywords, content quality, user experience, and links. However, search engines cannot see or interpret images like humans can. They rely on the alt text to understand what the image is about and how it relates to the rest of the page.
Therefore, adding relevant and descriptive alt text to your images can help you:
- Improve your page relevance and ranking for your target keywords. By including your keywords in the alt text, you can signal to the search engines what your page is about and match it with the user’s search intent.
- Increase your page traffic and click-through rate (CTR). By providing useful and informative alt text, you can entice users who see your page snippet in the search results to click on your link and visit your page.
- Boost your page authority and trustworthiness. By using accurate and honest alt text, you can avoid misleading or spamming users and search engines, which can negatively affect your page’s reputation and ranking.
How to Write Effective Alt Text?
There is no definitive rule or formula for writing alt text, but there are some general guidelines and best practices that you can follow to make it more effective for both users and search engines. Here are some tips:
- Be concise and clear. Aim for a maximum of 125 characters, which is the limit for most screen readers. Use simple and plain language that is easy to understand. Avoid jargon, acronyms, or technical terms that may confuse users or search engines.
- Be descriptive and specific. Describe the image as accurately and precisely as possible. Include relevant details, such as colours, shapes, sizes, numbers, names, or actions. Avoid vague or generic terms, such as “image”, “picture”, or “photo”.
- Be relevant and contextual. Write the alt text in relation to the purpose and content of the page. Explain how the image supports or enhances the main message or topic of the page. Avoid adding irrelevant or unnecessary information that may distract or confuse users or search engines.
- Be keyword-rich but not keyword-stuffed. Include your target keywords in the alt text if they are relevant and natural. Do not overuse or repeat keywords that may make your alt text sound unnatural or spammy. Do not use keywords that are unrelated or misleading to the image or the page.
- Be unique and original. Write different alt text for each image on your page. Do not copy or reuse alt text from other sources. Do not use the same alt text for multiple images that have different meanings or functions.
Examples of Good and Bad Alt Text
To illustrate how to apply these tips in practice, let’s look at some examples of good and bad alt text for an image of a laptop on a desk.
Bad alt text: Image
Why it’s bad: It’s too vague and generic. It does not describe what the image is or what it shows. It does not provide any useful information to users or search engines.
Bad alt text: Laptop
Why it’s bad: It’s too simple and incomplete. It does not include any details or context about the image. It does not explain how the image relates to the page content.
Bad alt text: Laptop on desk with coffee cup, notebook, pen, mouse, keyboard, plant, lamp, window, curtain
Why it’s bad: It’s too long and detailed. It includes too many irrelevant or unnecessary details that may overwhelm or confuse users or search engines. It does not focus on the main purpose or message of the image.
Bad alt text: Buy our laptop today and get 50% off
Why it’s bad: It’s too promotional and misleading. It uses the alt text as a sales pitch rather than a description of the image. It does not match the content or intent of the page.
Good alt text: A silver laptop on a wooden desk with a coffee cup
Why it’s good: It’s concise and clear. It uses simple and plain language that is easy to understand. It describes the image as accurately and precisely as possible.
Good alt text: How to use a laptop for remote work
Why it’s good: It’s relevant and contextual. It writes the alt text in relation to the purpose and content of the page. It explains how the image supports or enhances the main message or topic of the page.
Good alt text: A silver laptop with a blue screen showing a video call
Why it’s good: It’s descriptive and specific. It includes relevant details, such as colours, shapes, and actions. It avoids vague or generic terms, such as “image”, “picture”, or “photo”.
Good alt text: A silver laptop with a blue screen showing a video call of our team
Why it’s good: It’s keyword-rich but not keyword-stuffed. It includes the target keyword “team” in a relevant and natural way. It does not overuse or repeat keywords that may make the alt text sound unnatural or spammy.
Alt text is a brief description of an image that is displayed when the image cannot be loaded or viewed by the user. Alt text helps users who are visually impaired, use screen readers, have low bandwidth, or have disabled images in their browsers to understand the content and context of the image.
Alt text also plays an important role in SEO, which is the process of improving the visibility and relevance of a website or a web page in the organic search results of a search engine. Search engines rely on the alt text to understand what the image is about and how it relates to the rest of the page.
Therefore, adding relevant and descriptive alt text to your images can help you improve your page relevance and ranking for your target keywords, increase your page traffic and click-through rate, and boost your page authority and trustworthiness.
To write effective alt text, you should follow some general guidelines and best practices, such as being concise and clear, being descriptive and specific, being relevant and contextual, being keyword-rich but not keyword-stuffed, and being unique and original.
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