How to Write SEO Friendly Alt Text That Boosts Rankings and Accessibility

Alt text, or alternative text, is more than just a description for images—it’s a bridge that connects accessibility and SEO. It ensures users with visual impairments can understand your images through screen readers while also helping search engines grasp their context. In today’s web practices, writing SEO friendly alt text isn’t optional; it’s essential. It boosts your website’s visibility, enhances user experience, and supports accessibility standards.

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Using the SEO Friendly Alt Text Generator Responsibly

My Alt Text Generator should be used as a guide when generating alt text. Read through this post and be sure that the alt text that is generated follows accessibility guidelines. AI tools give us great ideas, but we have to learn to edit those ideas to make them our own.

Understanding the Basics of Alt Text

Alt text plays a crucial role in optimizing your website for both accessibility and search engine rankings. While often overlooked, well-crafted alt text ensures that your website is inclusive to all users and provides vital context to search engines scanning your content. Let's break down the essentials of alt text, its purpose, and why it matters for your website's performance.

Definition and Purpose of Alt Text

Alt text is a brief, descriptive text added to an image’s HTML to explain its content. This text serves two significant purposes: accessibility and SEO.

For accessibility, alt text allows individuals using screen readers to understand visual content. Imagine someone with low vision navigating your webpage—they can’t see the image, but alt text gives them a description they can hear.

From an SEO perspective, alt text gives search engines more context about your images. It tells them what the image is about, helping your page appear in relevant search results. It’s especially useful for appearing in Google Image results, which drives traffic to your site.

If you'd like a deeper understanding of how alt text contributes to accessibility, the WebAIM guide on alt text is an excellent resource.

Alt Text vs. Captions: What's the Difference?

It's easy to confuse alt text with captions, but the two serve very different roles.

• Alt Text: Hidden within the code, alt text describes the image for screen readers and search engines.
• Captions: Visible to all users, captions provide additional context or commentary about the image.

For example, a photo of a sunset might have the alt text: “Golden sunset over a calm ocean,” while the caption could be: “A breathtaking view of the Pacific at dusk.” Both are valuable, but they have different functions. Alt text ensures inclusivity and assists with SEO-friendly practices, while captions enhance the user’s visual experience.

You can learn more about properly describing image content at Harvard University’s accessibility guide.

Why Search Engines Care About Alt Text

Search engines can’t “see” images the way humans do. They rely on alt text to understand the content and purpose of an image. Good alt text bridges this gap by describing the image in a way search engines can process.

Here’s how this benefits your SEO efforts:

• Better Rankings: Websites with well-optimized alt text rank higher in search results because they give search engines more context.
• Improved Image Visibility: Appearing in image search results can be a bonus traffic source.
• Keyword Integration: Including relevant keywords, like “Sustainable travel,” in your image descriptions provides another opportunity for search engines to index your content and rank it accordingly.

A helpful tip is to focus on writing descriptive, concise alt text that provides value to both users and search engines. To master this, you can refer to Moz’s guide on alt text SEO.

Remember, alt text isn’t just about SEO. It’s about making your website more inclusive and providing clear, helpful information wherever you can.

Key Principles of Writing SEO Friendly Alt Text

Writing SEO-friendly alt text is an art and science that balances accessibility, user experience, and SEO strategy. Alt text serves as a bridge between visual content and search engines, as well as users who rely on screen readers. Let’s dive into some practical principles to make sure your alt text works for everyone, including search engines.

Keep It Concise yet Descriptive

Alt text is all about clarity and brevity. Why? Because screen readers and search engine algorithms thrive on concise information. When crafting your alt text, aim to keep it under 125 characters to ensure it’s easily digestible by assistive technologies and doesn’t get cut off.

Think about what’s truly essential. If your image is of a red apple sitting on a wooden table, you don’t need to describe every aspect down to the grain of the wood. A simple, descriptive alt text like “A red apple on a wooden table” conveys what users and search engines need to know.

Need more tips? The Harvard Accessibility Guide emphasizes keeping descriptions focused on the purpose of the image without including excessive or irrelevant details.

Incorporate Keywords Naturally

Incorporating keywords into your alt text can help boost your SEO, but it must feel natural. Cramming in exact-match keywords is a surefire way to alienate users and potentially incur search engine penalties.

For example, if the keyword is “Sustainable travel” and your image is a view of a mountain trail, an organic phrase like “Mountain trail surrounded by lush greenery, showcasing a path for eco-friendly adventures in sustainable travel.” works perfectly. It flows smoothly and doesn’t feel forced.

If you overuse keywords or make descriptions feel mechanical, it’ll hurt both usability and ranking potential. For more insights, check out Moz’s detailed guide on optimized alt text.

Avoid Redundancy and the Overuse of ‘Image of…'

Saying “image of” in your alt text is like announcing “There’s a photo here!”—redundant and unhelpful. Screen readers already announce that an image is present, so there’s no need to repeat it. This applies to phrases like “graphic of” or “picture of” as well.

Instead, jump straight into what the image is about. Replace “Image of a sunflower field at sunset” with “Sunflower field at sunset” for a cleaner and better experience. Useless phrases dilute the value of your alt text, making it harder for users and search engines to focus on what matters.

Ensure Contextual Relevance

Alt text needs to work in harmony with the content around it. Is the image accompanying a blog post about gardening tips? Then describe the image in a way that aligns with the text and adds meaningful context.

For instance, rather than simply describing an image as “A pair of pruning shears”, you could write “Pruning shears used for trimming overgrown plants in a garden”. This approach gives the alt text a sense of purpose and keeps things cohesive.

Keep in mind that alt text is not a standalone feature. It’s a part of your content’s overall story. The HubSpot Blog on Image Optimization explains how context plays a vital role in writing effective alt text.

Steer Clear of Keyword Stuffing

Back in the days when websites wanted to rank, they would “keyword stuff” them, especially local businesses that wanted to show up in local search. They would add every surrounding town to their site, usually in a big list. When search engines started to frown on this, they tried to fool the system by putting the keywords in the footer of the site, and making them the same color as the background!

Search engines are smart—they can spot when you’re trying to game the system.

Using relevant keywords can help improve your image SEO, but stuffing them into every alt text field is counterproductive. Worse yet, keyword-stuffed alt text can feel awkward and detract from user experience.

For instance, instead of writing “Sustainable travel on a mountain trail is a sustainable way to travel”, choose something natural: “Mountain trail that encourages eco-friendly travel”. The difference? One sounds robotic; the other is seamless.

Search engines prioritize user-focused content, so focus on adding value, not jargon or excessive keywords.

Best Practices for Using Alt Text in SEO Strategies

Alt text plays a dual role in promoting online accessibility and improving search engine rankings. When used effectively, it bridges the gap between users and images, ensuring content is both inclusive and optimized. Let's explore actionable strategies to master the art of alt text.

Integrating Alt Text into Content Strategy

Alt text isn’t just a standalone element—it should align with your page’s overall goals. If your webpage is built around a specific topic, the alt text should reflect and support that theme. Imagine your site's content as a conversation with your audience. If visuals support the dialogue, then alt text provides context for users and search engines alike.

• Stay relevant to the page's intent. For instance, if you're writing about organic gardening and feature an image of compost, use descriptive alt text like “Organic compost pile with vegetable scraps and leaves” instead of something generic like “Compost.”
• Supplement the message. Alt text should fill in gaps for users who can’t access the visual element of your content, ensuring they still get the full picture (pun intended).

Leveraging Tools and Automation for Alt Text

Manually creating alt text for a large number of images can be overwhelming, but modern tools make it easier to handle efficiently. AI-powered tools and automation can help maintain consistency and save time while ensuring accuracy.

• AI Alt Text Generators: Platforms like Rightblogger’s Image Caption Generator offers AI tools that can automatically generate alt text by analyzing image content.
• WordPress Accessibility Plugins: Popular plugins like WP Accessibility can guide you in identifying and optimizing your alt text fields.
• Avoid Over-Reliance: While automation tools help streamline the process, always review their output. Automated descriptions might miss specific details or fail the context test.

Optimizing Image File Names and Metadata

Alt text doesn’t work in isolation—it’s part of a broader optimization strategy that includes file names and metadata. These components together contribute to how search engines interpret and rank your content.

• Rename Files Strategically: Avoid default names like “IMG1234.jpg” and use descriptive, keyword-friendly file names like “golden-sunset-beach.jpg.” If you have already uploaded some images that do not have the correct file names, you can change them easily with a plugin.
• Add Metadata: Optimize image titles, captions, and descriptions to supplement your alt text. Consistent messaging across all these fields enhances SEO impact.
• Watch File Size: Large image sizes can slow page load times. Compress images without sacrificing quality to improve both user experience and search rankings..

Evaluating and Updating Alt Text Over Time

SEO is never static—and neither should your alt text practices be. Regularly revisiting your alt text ensures it adapts to changes in SEO algorithms and reflects updated content strategies.

• Conduct Periodic Audits: Make it a habit to check your alt text for relevance, accuracy, and keyword alignment.
• Adapt to Trends: As search engines evolve, so do their priorities. Stay current by keeping tabs on updates from Google and other platforms.
• Test for Accessibility: Use screen reader tools to experience your site as users with visual impairments would. This can help you identify gaps in your alt text descriptions.

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Alt Text

When writing alt text, it’s easy to make errors that can undermine its effectiveness for both accessibility and SEO. Avoiding these common pitfalls will ensure your alt text improves user experience and helps your content rank better on search engines.

Leaving Alt Text Blank

Leaving alt text blank is one of the most frequent mistakes, and it’s not just a missed opportunity—it’s a barrier. Whenever alt text is omitted:

• Accessibility is compromised. Screen readers can’t interpret images for users with visual impairments. Instead of hearing a helpful description, users encounter phrases like “unlabeled graphic.”
• SEO potential is wasted. Search engines rely on alt text to understand the content of your images. Without it, your website may lose out on valuable traffic through image search results.
• EXCEPTION: When an image is decorative, such as an icon or a divider line, you can leave the alt text blank. To determine if an image is decorative, ask yourself, “Does this image contribute to the meaning of the article? If I removed the image, am I removing important information?” If the answer is no, then you do not need to add alt text.

Including alt text is essential, with the exception of decorative images, for an inclusive and keyword-optimized website. For example, if your page includes an image of a coffee cup on a cafe table, write something like: “Ceramic coffee cup on wooden table with latte art.” 

Writing Generic Alt Text

Generic descriptions like “image”, “picture,” or “graphic” fail to assist both users and search engines. They provide no meaningful context, defeating the purpose of alt text entirely. Specificity and context are key to crafting alt text that adds value.

For instance:

• Instead of: “Dog”
• Use: “Golden retriever sitting in a park holding a tennis ball.”

This not only improves accessibility but also gives search engines clear context. Avoiding vague language ensures your alt text works harder for your content.

Being mindful of these common mistakes will set you on the path to writing SEO-friendly alt texts that are both accessible and impactful.

Next steps

Ready to make your website more inclusive and search-engine-friendly? Go back to the images on your site, evaluate their alt text, and make these changes today. Use your tools to make the process faster and more precise. Your audience—and your rankings—will thank you.