Image alt text or alt attributes are the descriptions of images on your site. Unlike image captions though, alt text is behind the scenes in the HTML code. And it is REALLY important and REALLY simple to have image alt text on all images throughout a website. If a site is not implementing image alt text they will be missing out on a (potentially) higher page rank and could receive less engagement on the site. Images enhance a site’s user experience through visual appeal. But without a proper description, your image won’t be found by Google and some users won’t be able to able to grab the information they need from that image.

Google Values Alt Text

The primary function of image alt text (in the eyes of Google and other search engines) is to aid visually impaired users in deciphering images. So when users with vision impairment want to browse the web, a screen reader can describe the image for them. And Google rewards sites for this. Google highly values sites implementing image alt text, so it can be a very positive gain in the rankings if you have it, and a penalizing loss if you don’t.

Lawsuits from Missing Alt Text

Alt text isn’t just a convenient add-on feature. If a site doesn’t add alt text it can bring up legal implications. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) serve as a resource to stay compliant with the ADA (American Disabilities Act) when crafting your website. If you don’t comply, aka not adding alt text to useful information, you can be subject to a lawsuit! Most notably, Beyoncé was sued for images on beyonce.com that didn’t have alt text. Now, most sites don’t get as much traffic as beyonce.com but it’s better to be careful right? Plus, having image alt text optimizes your site for Google to get you showing up higher in the search results. It’s a win-win if you have them.

Alt Text for Image Search

Google and other search engines don’t “see” images the way we do. They can identify the general layout of images but they won’t know the specific details. For example, Google might be able to tell that the image above is of a bag of something. What they won’t be able to tell is that it’s a large single serve bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. Adding this description as alt text will make the image more recognizable by search engines. When Google pulls a site’s image into their results, users will be able to click and link back to that site. Let’s say that the Nacho Cheese Doritos image was pulled from an Amazon product listing. Users will be able to link through to that product listing and buy those Nacho Cheese Doritos.

Alt Text Best Practices

1.  Just add it. It can’t hurt to have alt text on your images. Especially if the image has SEO value. With alt text, it can be a very valuable piece that drives traffic to your site.
2. Write accurate, concise, and descriptive alt text. Alt text is recommended to be around 125 characters. It’s good to describe the image accurately but only include relevant information.
3. Decorative images sometimes don’t need alt text. Let me explain. By putting the code “alt=” into that page’s HTML code, search engines will pretend that there is no text for the image and you won’t get penalized for it. Let’s say you have a page break image purely for visual design (see image above) that doesn’t link anywhere and doesn’t have any important information to relay to the user. Having the screen reader tell you the shapes and colors wouldn’t be very valuable and it would make for a poor user experience. If you are unsure whether the image can provide user value or SEO value, you should play it safe and include descriptive alt text. If it won’t add any value for the user or for SEO, don’t include it. Remember that the main goal of a site is to provide a positive and enjoyable user experience.
4. Don’t spam your alt text with keywords. This should be a no-brainer but Google will flag content if it appears to be oversaturated, or “over-optimized”, with keywords.

It has been proven that sites will rank higher by adding image alt text. Therefore, it’s very important to do it and to do it right. It’s a great way to appear in image searches that could drive traffic to your site. Alt text also creates a better user experience for visually impaired users visiting your site. In other words, image alt text is a must. You don’t want to end up with a lawsuit like Beyoncé.

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