What are alt tags?

The Importance of Alt Tags

Images with well-written alt tags help improve your page’s discoverability, but they also ensure that your images appear in image packs, as part of a featured snippet, and in Google Images search results. This presents an interesting opportunity to drive more traffic to your website.

The Purpose of Alt Tags

The primary purpose of alt tags is to describe images for users who cannot see them, such as people with visual impairments who use screen readers. They also help search engines like Google better understand and index the content of images, leading to improved SEO performance. Search engine algorithms are capable of recognizing images to a certain extent; alt tags help provide even more context for the image.

Optimizing Alt Tags for SEO

Do you want to use alt tags effectively for SEO? The steps below will help you write the perfect alt tags for your images:

1. Descriptive alt tags: Provide an accurate description of the image with relevant information. Avoid general terms such as “image” or “photo”; it’s better to use an alt tag like “A photo of a woman eating apple pie.”
2. Use relevant keywords: Include important keywords in the alt tag, but always make sure the alt tag is written naturally and is relevant to your target audience.
3. Keep the length in mind: an ideal alt tag is between five and fifteen words. Be concise and to the point.
4. Avoid keyword stuffing: Excessive repetition of keywords in alt tags is considered spam and can harm your search engine visibility. So, avoid keyword stuffing in your alt tags.
5. Spelling errors: Just as you would on the rest of your website, avoid spelling errors in your alt tags. Spelling errors can cause confusion for search engines and users of screen readers.
6. Avoid unnecessary words: words such as “image,” “photo,” or “picture” are unnecessary in an alt tag. Make sure to provide an accurate description right away, without including any unnecessary content in your alt tag. An alt tag is always assigned to an image, so there’s no need to specify that it’s an image.

The Right Length for Alt Tags

There is no set rule for the length of alt tags, but keep them as short and informative as possible. Ideally, use no more than 125 characters to prevent longer tags from being truncated by some screen readers.

Alt Tags and Accessibility

Alt tags not only improve SEO, but also your website’s accessibility. By adding descriptive alt tags, people with visual impairments can better understand and navigate your site’s content. Screen readers read the content of the alt tag aloud, allowing users with visual impairments to use the website effectively.

Is your image not loading? If so, the content of the alt tag will be displayed to users. That way, users will still know what the broken image is about. In many ways, an alt tag is therefore an important part of an accessible website.

Examples of alt tags

A good alt tag:

A mediocre alt tag:

A bad alt tag:

Get the Most Out of Your Website

Images are processed 60,000 times faster than text. This makes them a powerful tool for capturing visitors’ attention. Captivating alt tags for your images are essential for getting the most out of your website. Keep them short, powerful, and relevant for the best results. Wondering if you’re using alt tags everywhere? Scan your images with our alt tag checker.