How alt text can help SEO 🔎

As well as making your website more accessible, did you know that adding alt text to images on your site can also help with your SEO?

Alt text is ‘alternative text’ which screen readers and assistive technology use to describe a web image. It provides a non-visual explanation of what an image is, does or says, and therefore makes the page experience complete and accessible for all users.

But it is also recognised by search engines, and therefore worthwhile noting and considering from an SEO point of view.

How it works

You may have noticed when using a search engine, above the page results are sometimes image results displaying first. This is because the title and alt text of your search term is set within those images, meaning that they can be picked up and found as results just as easily as text itself.

The impact of this is that keywords in your web image alt text are just as important to consider as keywords in your page copy when looking to maximise your SEO.

How to optimise your alt text & SEO

Before you get too keyword happy, it’s important not to compromise the quality of your alt text in pursuit of SEO by ramming all your images full of all your keywords everywhere. This will both make the experience of using your site less enjoyable and not useful for visitors using screen readers, as well as likely get you caught out by Google who are wise to such tactics and will mark you down accordingly.

The best approach is to write your alt text with both purposes in mind — keep it appropriate and useful for screen reading use and where relevant, add in functional key words to help boost your SEO.

Want more info on how and when to write alt text? Check out our blog post here 🔗

Hex Studio are a small creative studio who believe good design matters. For more information on how to ensure your website is accessible, check out our design that works guide 🔗 or drop us a line at hello@hexstud.io today.