Image alt text is an important tool when it comes to improving your SEO and pulling more people into your website. When you search for a term on Google, you’ll see that quite often there’s a number of images that show up before the conventional text results on the search results page.
That’s why you need to start paying more attention to alt text for images if it’s something you haven’t been doing already. We’re going to talk more about that today and how you can go about adding alt attributes to your website’s images. So read on to find out all about that.
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What is Alt Text for Images?
In the most simple of terms, alt text for images is a short written description of what’s going on in a particular image. It offers context and might help the person reading it make sense of the image. There’s a lot more to it than that as well, and we’ll cover what should be included in the alt text later on in this guide.
Why is Image Alt Text Important?
There are a few different reasons why it’s important to add alt text and alt attributes to your images. One of the first reasons to keep in mind is accessibility. Your content will be much more accessible with alt text because that text can then be used by a screen reader or some sort of assistive technology that might be used by someone with vision impairments, for example.
The user experience is improved for everyone when you use alt text though, not just people with disabilities. If an image won’t load for whatever reason, the alt text will offer a description so the user will know what’s meant to be there even when they can’t actually see it.
And then there’s image traffic. As we discussed earlier, search engines like to offer images at the top of search results pages, and those image links can be used to boost traffic. It’s another way to encourage a greater number of organic visitors, and it’s something you should be making the most of.
How to Write Image Alt Text:
Describe the Image
It’s important to use your alt text as an opportunity to describe the image. After all, this is the main function of the text; to tell the reader or visitor what the image is and why it’s relevant to the page and/or content as a whole.
Use Your Keywords
When you’re creating your alt text, you want to make it SEO-friendly and that’s why you should use the keywords that are relevant. You should already have done keyword research, and you can use your findings to insert the relevant keywords in an organic way.
But Avoid Keyword Stuffing
At the same time, you want to avoid stuffing too many keywords into the alt text so that it becomes inorganic and unnatural. This not only looks poor and reads awkwardly, but also damages the SEO outcomes you’ll be able to achieve with the images.
Keep it Short and Sweet
It’s best to keep the alt text relatively short. Getting to the point and not dragging things on for too long will help with your SEO aims and with the readability of the text. It serves no real purpose to have bloated alt text captions
Don’t Use Irrelevant and Unnecessary Words
Using words that are not really serving any purpose, either in terms of keyword integration or description, should be kept out of the alt text. Unnecessary words simply act to bloat the text and make it less readable for your site’s visitors.
Add Context
The real purpose of your alt text is to add context to your images and your site in general. You want to make sure that you’re giving insight and adding something to your content, and that something usually comes in the form of context.
Use Tools to Find “img” Tags with Missing “Alt” Attributes
If you’re going through your website to find missing alt attributes, the task is made significantly easier if you use a tool to find img tags that have the missing attributes you’re looking to add.
As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when implementing alt text for your website’s images. Be sure to take into account the information above if you want to improve your website’s SEO with the use of alt text for images. It’ll start to make an impact on your site traffic numbers in no time at all.
