ALT text and SEO – Create ALT text and get noticed!

What is alt text?

You will find various definitions of this concept on the web, including:

• ALT attribute,
• ALT tag,
• text alternative,
• text equivalent.

To better explain the concept of alt text, let’s take an example. Let’s say you run a culinary blog dedicated to Asian cuisine. To each recipe story, you add a few photos while preparing a dish and at the end, you add a video recording showing step by step how to prepare the chosen dish. Now imagine one of the following situations:

1. For reasons beyond your control, your photos or video are not loading for the user.
2. A visually impaired or blind person using screen readers has found your site.

A tool that will allow you to convey the content or context from your photos and recording to the user is precisely alt text.

Alt text functions

Let’s go back to our culinary blog example. Let’s assume that in a hurry you posted photos in the story that were automatically described by the camera, e.g. IMG_012345.jpg. If the images cannot be loaded by the user, they will only see an empty space with a meaningless image number.

If you used alt text, the recipient would see a short description of the image (for example: ‘ingredients: 0.5 kg of jasmine rice, 300 ml of coconut milk, mixed vegetables for the pan, 2 tablespoons of olive oil’). The alt text conveys the purpose of the image.

However, if your site was visited by a visually impaired person, the alt text included in the graphics or video would help them understand the message of these illustrations, or the context of their use. People with poor eyesight use screen readers to browse sites, which pick up alt texts and read them so that the reader has a ‘full picture of the situation’.

Alt text and SEO

An equally important advantage of alt texts is the improvement of your site’s visibility on the web. Thanks to the descriptions of graphics and other files included in the text, Google robots are able to index them accurately.

In other words, alt text helps search engines to associate an image with the content of the page.

How to Create Great Alt Text?

First, i’ll show you how to add alt text to your image, then i’ll focus on the rules for creating alt text that will deliver the results you want.

First, a purely technical question. In your site’s HTML code, each image has a description with an ALT tag. So, check your site for this by searching for the code:

If the quotation mark after ‘alt’ is empty – start creating alternative text as soon as possible. At the HTML level, it does not require great skills. You simply enter the text after the ALT tag.

You can also complete the alt description directly in the CMS, e.g. in WordPress. After selecting a featured image or photo in the content, you will see the details of the attached file that need to be completed.

However, if the issue concerns a multimedia presentation or a text file, the procedure for placing the description is different. Note – the description applies to Microsoft Office products:

1. Place a photo or chart;
2. Right-click on it and select the command ‘Format image…’;
3. Search for the ‘Alternative text’ function;
4. Provide a title and description.

Rules for creating alternative text – this is what you need to remember

Effective use of alternative texts is governed by certain rules that are worth knowing before we start our adventure with the ALT attribute.

We have written down the most important rules for you regarding the length of the text, the phrases used, and we list situations in which using alternative text is not necessary.

When creating an alternative description of an image and other graphics, remember that:

• the text itself should convey the exact meaning of the image – avoid excessive adjectives in favor of verbs that add lightness to the content;
• the length of the text should not exceed 125 characters – in fact, there is no upper limit, but digital readers usually cut off the content after 125 characters, which means that you have to choose your words carefully;
• it is recommended to avoid words such as ‘the photo shows’ or ‘this image contains’ – if you include alternative text, the reader knows what they are dealing with (limit the number of unnecessary words!);
• the text depends on the context – in some situations it will be advisable to describe the emotions, in others it will be necessary to indicate the location or a specific place;
• if there is text in the image, it is worth copying it into the description of the graphic;
• It is not worth repeating the content of the article – if the graphic is a diagram or scheme illustrating what you have already explained in the text, only include a short note such as; ‘diagram X described above’;
• decorative graphics (stock illustrations that only add color to the content of the article) do not add value to the surrounding text, so in this case you can skip using alt text.

Alt text – benefits

Placing alt text with graphics helps increase the visibility of the page on the web. Search engines will be more willing to refer users to your website due to the precise indexing of the included graphics consistent with the content of the page.

Another important function of the ALT attribute is the ability to ‘illustrate’ and convey the purpose of the graphic to visually impaired people using screen readers. It is also a great solution in the case of a poor connection or other unforeseen circumstances in which your graphics will not be displayed to the user.