The Ultimate Guide to ALT Text and Alt Attributes

When it comes to SEO, one of the most important things to consider is how easily your content can be discovered by search engines, especially if you want to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). One crucial factor that many people overlook is the use of ALT text or alt attributes. If you’re new to the world of SEO, don’t worry – this blog post will tell you everything you need to know about ALT text and alt attributes, and why they are important.

ALT text or alt attributes are descriptions that you can add to the images on your website. It is a brief, alternative description of the image that appears when an image cannot be displayed on a webpage. Adding descriptions to images in this way lets search engines know what is contained in the image, which makes it a lot easier for them to index and categorize your content.

Why use ALT Text/Alt Attribute?

Adding ALT text to images is just good practice, it makes your content more accessible to everyone. In many ways, it’s the same reason why we caption images on social media posts. Additionally, it is also an easy way to improve your website’s accessibility because visually impaired people who use screen readers rely on ALT text to understand the content of images displayed on your website. Furthermore, it is helpful for users with slower internet connections, as it helps the page load faster.

Why is it important?

Adding ALT text to images is critical for a better user experience. Web accessibility is not only important for users with disabilities; it impacts everybody. When the images on your website do not load correctly, filthy or too slow to load, the user experience is severely impacted. As your website user experience worsens, so will your website’s SEO. Therefore, adding effective ALT text is an integral part of creating user-focused content and optimizing your website for search engines.

How does it work?

ALT text works by providing relevant information and context to search engines and users about the content of the image. The descriptions include keywords that are related to the image, which Google can recognize and factor into your website’s ranking. When a search engine crawls a web page, it reads the ALT text and uses it to determine the page’s relevancy, particularly in relation to the search query.

Examples

Here is an example of what an effective ALT text description might look like: “a golden retriever plays fetch in a park with a green ball”. This description provides a lot of context and useful information related to the picture.

Common Questions and answers

How long should my ALT text be?

Your ALT text should be as long as necessary to provide an accurate and succinct description of the image.

Should I include keywords in my ALT text?

Yes, including keywords in your ALT text can help improve your website’s SEO. However, avoid keyword stuffing. Also, use keywords that are relevant to the content of the image only.

ALT text is an essential tool for SEO and making your content more accessible to everyone. Using descriptive and accurate ALT text descriptions provides more context, accessibility, and relevance for your images. Whether you’re creating a new website or optimizing an existing one, incorporating effective ALT text into your web pages will help improve your website’s rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) and provide your audience with an enhanced user experience.