The 2 Reasons To Provide Alt Text On Your Story Images
Accessibility and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
If you’ve written an article on Medium, then you have most likely seen the option to add alt text to photos and images that accompany your story. For those unfamiliar with the term, using this feature may not seem essential or important. However, utilizing alt text is a way to make your content inclusive and also to potentially expand your outreach to new readers.
Image Accessibility
The most important reason to put alt text on the images that you use is to make them accessible to readers who use assistive technology while engaging with your content. According to the National Federation of the Blind, there are more than 7.6 million people who report having a visual disability in the United States alone. Many of these people use screen readers to access digital content.
When your images have no alt text, screen readers will just skip over them as if they aren’t there. This means that anyone using a screen reader to read your content will not have the same opportunity or access to elements of your stories as non-screen reader users. Leaving images without alt text not only impacts readers with visual impairments but also takes away from the quality and inclusiveness of your content.
Accessibility is a civil right and it is easy enough to add alt text to your images to make sure that anyone reading your stories with a screen reader will not be denied this right.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Another reason for adding alt text to your images on Medium and other platforms is that it can expand your outreach to new readers through SEO. Without alt text, search engines treat your images just as a screen reader does and jump over them as if they do not exist.
By providing descriptive alt text on the images that you use, you will allow search engines like Google to know more about what the image is showing and also your story as a whole. Through keywords found in your alt text, your content may move up in the algorithm on both general search pages and/or image search pages. This can make it appear sooner for new readers who may be interested in what you create.
If you are not using alt text, then you are missing out on an important part of search engine optimization that could help you expand your influence.
You should always aim to utilize alt text as a content creator. This tool is an essential part of making the platforms you use and your own content inclusive to everyone and also can help make your work go further than it would if you weren’t using it. So the next time you are using a visual to enhance your story make sure to add a short, descriptive alt text.
