What Is Alt Text?

Alt text, also known as alternative text, is a textual description of an image or other non-text content on a web page. Alt text is used by screen readers to provide a description of the image to visually impaired users, and it is also used by search engines to better understand the content of the image.

Alt text should be concise and descriptive, and it should accurately reflect the content of the image. For example, if the image is a photo of a cat, the alt text could be “A black cat sitting on a red couch.”

Alternative text is important for accessibility and SEO. It helps to ensure that all users, regardless of their visual ability, can access and understand the content of your website. It also helps to improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Here are some tips:

• Be concise and descriptive.
• Use keywords that are relevant to the image and the content of your page.
• Avoid using generic alt text, such as “image” or “photo.”
• If the image is decorative or does not convey important information, you can use an empty alt attribute (alt=””).

Here are some good examples:

• A photo of a cat sitting on a red couch: “A black cat sitting on a red couch.”
• A diagram of the human heart: “A diagram of the human heart, showing the different chambers and valves.”
• A graph showing the sales of a product over time: “A graph showing the sales of the product XYZ over the past five years.”
• A decorative image of a flower: “”

Here are some additional tips for using alternative text effectively:

• Use for all images on your web page, including decorative images.
• Avoid using to stuff keywords into your page’s content.
• If you have an image with a lot of text, such as a chart or graph, consider providing a long description in the alt text. You can also use a combination of short alt text and a long description element (such as a figure or figcaption element) to provide more information about the image.

By following these tips, you can make your website more accessible and improve your website’s SEO.

Does Alt Text Help SEO?

Yes, alt text does help SEO. It is also used by search engines to understand the content of images.

When you add alt text or descriptions to your images, you are providing search engines with additional information about your website’s content. This can help search engines to index your website more accurately and to rank your website higher in search results pages (SERPs).

In addition, description text can help to improve the user experience of your website. If an image fails to load, the text will be displayed in place of the image. This allows users to still understand the content of the image, even if it does not load.