Alt text is an important element of on-page SEO optimisation.
Proper alt text optimisation makes your website stand a better chance of ranking in Google image search.
Yes, alt text is a ranking factor for Google image search.
Depending on your website’s niche and specificity, Google image search traffic may play a huge role in your website’s overall success.
Why Image Alt Text is Important for SEO
We've already highlighted that setting alt text for images is very important for SEO and is a key contributing search engine ranking factor. Alt tags provide context to what an image is displaying, informing search engine crawlers and allowing them to index an image correctly. However, not only do alt tags help search engine crawlers, not setting alt tags for your images can have a detrimental effect on the ranking of your web pages.
Alt text is also important when browsers are unable to render a page properly, meaning the web page does not display the images. In place of images the website will return the alt attributes instead, describing what image should be showing. If you do not have any alt attributes set then this means the user will have no idea what image was meant to display, providing a significantly poorer user experience.
Fundamentally, the purpose of alt text is to improve accessibility by describing what an image is showing to visitors who do not have the ability to see them. However, it also helps search engine crawlers and so improves SEO. Failing to set alt attributes for images means that your website becomes difficult for screen readers and browsers to interpret and reduces the user experience for anyone who is visually impaired. Ensure that every visitor, as well as search engines can access your content by making sure you set descriptive alt text for all your websites images.
How To Write Good Alt Tags
When writing alt tags, you need to avoid writing them solely for SEO purposes, as this can alter the true purpose of writing alt tags. Remember what alt text was first introduced for, to help the blind or visually impaired understand what is happening in an image. This means your first priority should be to describe what is happening in the image and avoid keyword ‘stuffing’. Keep alt tags short and descriptive, using just one or two keywords.
Examples of Good & Bad Alt text
Bad – Skiing
Good – Man skiing down snow covered mountain
Bad – Builder
Good – Construction worker cutting wood with a power tool
Bad – Stadium
Good – Crowded Football Stadium
The alt text does not have to be long, but it does need to be detailed and descriptive to benefit the user as much as possible.
So Make Sure Your Images Have Alt Text
