Do you know that 20% of Google search queries occur via images? Yet surprisingly, 45% of images on websites still lack alt text! I have spent time helping businesses optimize their visual content, and one of the greatest opportunities in SEO lies within mastering image alt text optimization for content – from basic principles to advanced techniques that will ensure better ranking within search results. In this comprehensive guide on image alt text optimization I will discuss all you need to know!
Allow me to discuss why alt text has become such an integral component of my website development process.
I vividly remember the day that I truly realized the significance of image alt text. While reviewing a website I had created for a local bakery, Sarah, who uses a screen reader due to visual impairment, attempted to navigate it using only her screen reader – what came through was shocking: instead of hearing beautiful descriptions of delicious bread and pastries she got nothing more than repeated “image” followed by silence from it all!
Let’s go back to basics: what exactly is alt text (alternative text)? Simply put, alt text is written information that appears within HTML using its alt attribute to describe an image. Think of alt text as your image’s understudy: when necessary it steps in with its lines when necessary.
Alt text doesn’t exist solely to benefit SEO (although that can certainly be beneficial). Instead, its primary function lies with accessibility: 2.2% of adults in the U.S. have visual disabilities relying on screen readers for comprehension purposes of images on your website – without alt text they could miss crucial portions of its content and have difficulty accessing key elements of it.
But let’s discuss those SEO benefits, which are significant. In my experience optimizing websites, proper image alt text makes an impressive impactful impact in image search visibility. Although Google’s image alt text recognition technology has advanced substantially over time, its crawlers still heavily depend on image alt text for understanding image content – adding it gives their algorithms access to what your images represent visually and provides “vision.”
A study surprising for me: According to a 2023 SEMrush study, images with optimized alt text can help pages rank for 50% more keywords compared with pages without alt text – that’s no small bump – this represents significant advantage in SEO’s highly-competitive environment.
At the core of accessibility compliance lies alt text: it’s mandatory. Per the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), all non-decorative images must include text alternatives for accessibility reasons – something I learned the hard way when one of my clients faced legal action over their noncompliant website. Trust me; adding alt text is much less of an ordeal!
An early mistake I made was overstuffing my image alt text with keywords. Don’t make my mistake! Focus instead on writing for humans first – use an comparable description as though speaking over the phone with someone about what the image represents; be specific, clear and succinct (typically under 125 characters).
Proper alt text not only contributes to accessibility and SEO efforts; it’s also vital for user experience when images don’t load due to slow connections or have been disabled as data saving measures. According to HTTP Archive, approximately 2% of website visits include failed image load attempts – providing ample opportunity for alt text to step up!
Remember, each image on your site tells a unique tale. Image alt text ensures it reaches everyone regardless of how they access your content – helping screen reader users comprehend, improving SEO performance or meeting accessibility compliance are just some of the many reasons it pays off to invest time writing quality image alt texts for each image on your website. Taking those extra seconds writing compelling alt texts always pays off!
Do you need help writing effective alt text? I have found the key to writing successful alt text is being descriptive yet succinct, providing context when applicable, and prioritizing clarity over keyword optimization – your users (and search engines!) will thank you. You can connect with me and my blog to know 101 about image Alt text.
Let me share my experience in the writing of an effective alt-text for pictures following many years of managing content for different websites. My mistakes have taught me which techniques work, and what do not.
Never will I forget the day that I had to sort through hundreds of photos of products on an online store and look over the alt text on images. What was a wake-up call! Many were not even full of Thanksgiving-related keywords, like turkey recipes. Our accessibility scores also proved this wasn’t the case!
Let’s take a look at the factors that make alt text images successful. Imagine the alt-text image in the form of an announcement on a radio station The goal should be to communicate key information concisely and quickly. My formula for writing effective alt text for images is the following formula: [what’s going on(what’s going on) + [key details] + [textual information as needed, and a context if needed. The ideal length for alt text shouldn’t exceed 150 words, though technically there are no limitations however anything more than 150 characters will be deleted by screen readers regardless of length.
The most humiliating facial expressions I have ever seen came when I realized that each alt text of an image started by saying “Image of …””. It was completely unnecessary because screen readers already tell users that the image is a picture!
Alternative Bad Text Example: For instance: Here is a photo of an adorable Golden Retriever puppy playing with the Red ball that she has in her yard. This could be a great Alt Text example.
Let’s talk about the terms we use to search to search for. Although it may be appealing to make alt-text images with any search term that you can think of I’ve discovered that natural language performs better. The algorithm used by Google for image recognition has grown adept at recognizing context my tests have shown that descriptive alt text with relevant keywords perform better than the text with keywords each time.
I worked with a food writer on this real-world project study that included a change in the Alt recipe’s text changed from best homemade pasta recipe to: best homemade pasta Italian authentic traditional cooking
To:
A more precise model, did not just improve accessibility however, it also resulted in improved search results because it offered specific and contextual details about the image.
I would prefer to use an empty alt attribute (alt =””) rather than entirely omitting images that could be fancy (such for backgrounds, or divide lines) so that the screen reader isn’t able to attempt to interpret the meaning of the alt attribute.
A method I’ve found effective to write more effective alt text is to use telephones as a means of explaining an image, focusing on the details that could help readers understand its significance and convey the message intended. Doing this exercise in your mind will help you identify and concentrate on the key features.
Understanding the real purpose behind alt text is crucial in evaluating accessibility or SEO. Rather it should provide an online environment that is inclusive, where everybody can access the content. When I started thinking in this manner, creating appropriate alt-text for pictures became a habit instead of a separate task.
Make sure to take a moment when you add images to your website and make meaningful alt texts for each. You’ll be able to write a meaningful alt text for your future self (and your users!) will be grateful, particularly since it means you won’t have to scramble later on to deal with accessibility issues. Trust me when I tell you that I am aware!
Let me share my experience optimizing image alt text for various types of images. Through trial and error, I learned that each type of picture requires its own specific approach – something I wish I knew before spending hours redoing alt text across client websites.
My greatest lesson came while working on an e-commerce site. Our product image alt text needed to be especially specific and detailed while remaining orderly and organized – something which initially proved disastrous! I learned this valuable lesson while managing hundreds of product images across our e-commerce website. We initially treated all images the same, which proved a great error! Product image alt texts must provide detailed yet organized details about each individual image that make a purchase decision possible.
As for product images, here’s my go-to formula:
Noticing how it includes product attributes (length, pattern, color and sleeves) as well as size context is helpful both to screen reader users as well as search engines in understanding exactly what we offer. Compare that with our original offer.
Now let’s consider decorative images – those subtle background patterns or separator lines used to beautify websites – I used to write an image alt text tag for every decorative image before realizing I was making their experience worse for screen reader users.
Infographics and data visualizations had always presented me with difficulty until I developed an effective system. Since these images often include tons of details, my best approach for providing an overview was through image alt text while providing further explanation elsewhere on the page.
As I create featured images for blog and article posts, I have learned to focus on conveying an atmosphere and relevant theme rather than simply outlining visual details.
Logo alt text requires a different approach entirely, and I have discovered through testing various approaches what solution works best
Unsurprising realization I made while optimizing a photography website was that artistic images required context-sensitive image alt text; depending upon its placement on the page, different pieces might require different alt texts depending on which sections it appeared in.
Charts and graphs require careful attention. Here is my approach for creating basic charts:
As soon as an image contains text, I make sure that its full value appears in its alt attribute – this was especially helpful when creating button images or banner ads: this enabled us to include actual wording directly within their alt attributes for maximum performance and impact.
Keep in mind that social media preview images require special consideration too; I optimize these taking both platform and accessibility into account:
Through trial-and-error work, I’ve come to understand that consistency across every image category while adapting my approach based on its purpose and context is key for successful page content writing. Not simply describing an image – rather conveying its significance on a webpage!
Want to test whether your image alt text is effective? Take a browse with images turned off; if everything still makes sense then that’s likely your cue that it should work well – this method has allowed me to effectively spot potential issues before they turned into bigger headaches!
After years of experience using image alt text optimization tools, allow me to share what I’ve discovered over time. After trying many options – and unfortunately some that were waste of my time – I finally came upon some outstanding ones which have revolutionized how I handle image accessibility and SEO.
Remember my initial website audit? I had the daunting task of reviewing image alt text for over 2,000 images – an overwhelming undertaking! That experience taught me the true power of having effective tools at my disposal: now, what used to take weeks can now be completed quickly.
Let’s focus on SEO tools that make a real impactful difference: Screaming Frog has long been my go-to for this task; its crawls of an entire site flag any image with missing or problematic image alt text and provides detailed reports that save me hours of manual checking. SEMrush and Ahrefs both offer similar capabilities; their true worth lies in monitoring how images perform within search results.
WAVE has been an incredible tool for accessibility checking; I first encountered it during an accessibility audit that nearly caused gray hairs. With its browser extension that instantly shows which images need attention and why – it’s like having an accessibility expert looking over my shoulder! Additionally, another indispensable tool in my workflow has become aXe DevTools, as it detects issues other tools miss when dealing with complex image implementations.
Browser extensions have made life so much simpler for me. Alongside WAVE, my go-to extensions include image Alt Text Checker for Chrome which gives an immediate visual overlay of all image alt texts on a page – great when training content teams as they can immediately see examples of good and poor practice! Image Alt Text Pro extension is another one I use frequently due to its bulk export feature.
Regarding bulk updates, let me offer you my advice about automation tools that truly work. After learning this the hard way while trying to manually update hundreds of product images manually myself, Python scripts became my go-to method of handling large scale updates – however proprietary code cannot be shared publicly so there are plenty of open-source solutions on GitHub which you can adapt for your own business’s specific requirements.
As far as image optimization platforms are concerned, Cloudinary stands out. Not only can it handle image compression and resizing without loss of image alt text integrity – something other platforms don’t do well enough – although ImageOptim is another solid option if working locally stored files.
One tool I was amazed to discover its utility was Google Lighthouse. Most people see it as a general performance tool, but its image accessibility audit features are quite detailed – I use Google Lighthouse after making bulk updates as my last line of defense!
Here’s one pro tip I wish someone had shared earlier: combine automated tools and manual review processes. For heavy lifting projects, automation works wonders; then I manually review samples as an added quality control measure. Taking this hybrid approach has allowed me to maintain high standards while keeping projects manageable.
Establishing a systematic approach using these tools has proven key in providing ongoing maintenance. I use Screaming Frog monthly audits and weekly spot checks with browser extensions as part of this routine, as well as automation tools whenever we make major updates to content.
My most useful lesson has been discovering there is no single tool capable of fulfilling every need perfectly. Instead, I utilize various combinations such as Screaming Frog for site audits, WAVE page-level checks and custom scripts for bulk updates as well as manual quality reviews to maintain both SEO performance standards and accessibility standards. These combined efforts are truly effective at keeping both standards under check simultaneously.
Be mindful when using tools; their success relies on how effectively you employ them. Create a comprehensive strategy, select tools that suit your workflow, and put user experience first; this way both visitors and search rankings alike will appreciate it!
Does AI-generated image alt text fail you? Yes. Although these tools have made significant advancements over time, human oversight remains necessary; I use AI as a starting point, then review and refine manually the output before publishing or making updates live – it pays dividends both in terms of accessibility and SEO performance!
Learning how to optimize images alt text isn’t only for SEO; think of it as an exercise in website accessibility for everyone! Following these guidelines can help implement sound strategies and best practices so your page meets both greater search visibility and improved user experience. Remember, successful alt text requires both style and technique – get optimizing today, and see the impact it makes to overall SEO tomorrow!
