Tips On How To Write Image Alt Text

Visual content is as important as textual content. For this reason, you should add at least one image to every article you publish on your website.

Today, we will talk about alt text (alternative text), its importance, and share tips on how to use it the right way.

Keep on reading, and you will know how to write image alt texts and make your website accessible for a wider audience.

What is alt text?

Basically, the alt text is an attribute that describes what is depicted in the image or explains the function of the image. For example, if the image is used as a button for adding product Z to the shopping cart, the alt text should be the following: alt="button to add product Z to the shopping cart".

Why is alt text important?

Now let’s talk about the importance of alt text. For what reasons website owners should use alt attributes?

As you probably know, visually impaired users use screen readers when surfing the web. If you add alt text to the images, you will make your website more accessible for this group of users. A screen reader will read the alt text to help visually impaired users to get a better understanding of an on-page image.

Besides, alt attributes come in handy when users have poor bandwidth or use ad blockers. If visual content on your webpage is not fully loaded, users will see alt texts instead of a blank page.

Also, you should understand that alt tags provide better image context/descriptions to web crawlers. By adding an alt attribute to the image, you will double the chances of getting this image indexed properly and getting to the top of image search results.

7 tips on how to come up with a proper alt text

Be specific

Alt text should be specific enough to add value to the user. Imagine you need to add alt attributes for the following two images.

What is the first word that comes to your mind when you are looking at these pictures? It’s the word “apple”. Naturally, you may presuppose that it’s a good idea to use this word as an alt text.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Photo by Medhat Dawoud on Unsplash

But the truth is that (in most cases) you should use more than one word to describe the image. Otherwise, your alt text will not add value to the users and will not help you get to the top of Google image search.

So what words should you choose to describe the images from our example? Alt texts like “red apple in hand” and “Apple logo” will be the good options.

Keep it short

Trying to make an alt attribute more specific, some people overdo the task. They write too detailed and too long image descriptions.

Kristen Dakin, an expert content writer from GrabMyEssay, explains why lengthy alt texts do not work: “Screen readers typically cut off alt text at about 125 characters. So please, don’t waste your time on writing super long alt texts. Keep your image descriptions short, preferably under 100 characters.”

Avoid keyword stuffing

Google doesn’t tolerate keyword stuffing. So please don’t add keywords to the image alt text just for the sake of it. It’s a wrong approach to making your websites more SEO-friendly.

If the keyword is relevant to the image description, you can use it. But if the keyword is completely irrelevant, you should go without it. That’s an important rule of alt-text writing, and you can’t ignore it.

Choose proper capitalization and punctuation

As we have already mentioned, alt text is usually read by screen readers as well as low-bandwidth users. It means the text you create must flow naturally, have proper capitalization and punctuation.

If you upload dozens of images to your website every day and don’t have time to edit and proofread alt texts, get help from the experts in the field. Consider using writing services like TrustMyPaper, TopEssayWriting, and websites like BestEssaysEducation.com and Grammarly. Well-written alt texts will help you to make your website more user-friendly and achieve higher results.

Don’t use the words “image” and “picture”

One of the common mistakes of writing alt texts is using words “image”, “picture”, and similar synonyms. These words are unnecessary – you should never add them to the alt attribute. It’s an obvious thing for both: users and Google that alt text is used to describe an image, so you should better avoid excessive wordiness.

Don’t write like this: alt="picture of white roses". Eliminate useless words and put it simply: alt="white roses". 

Add an empty alt attribute, if needed

Every image must have an alt text. However, there is an exception. If some of your images serve purely for design purposes, and if these images are in your HTML, not in your CSS (where they ought to be), you should give them an empty alt attribute. Here is an example: <img src="image.png" alt="">  

Use longdesc="", if longer description is required

Have you designed an infographic, chart, diagram, map, or another complex image? Well, it’s highly unlikely that you can describe it precisely using 125 characters. In this situation, you should use longdesc=“” tag. 

The longdesc attribute helps to make infographics and other complex visual content accessible for visually impaired people. This attribute is easy to program, and its transcript is easy to read.

Wrapping it up

Alt tags are essential elements of a user-friendly SEO-optimized website. So if you have used to leave the alt text empty, you should fix this mistake. Write relevant image descriptions to make your website accessible for visually impaired users, and you will be rewarded with higher traffic and conversions.