What is Alt Text (Alternative Text)?

Alt text (the "alt" attribute in an HTML image tag) is one of the most commonly neglected elements on small business websites. It is simple to add, directly affects both accessibility and SEO, and is frequently either missing entirely or filled with stuffed keywords that serve neither purpose well.

For accessibility, alt text is read aloud by screen reader software used by visually impaired visitors. A meaningful description like "Sarah Johnson, real estate agent in Chicago, standing in front of a home" communicates the same information the image would. A blank alt tag or a tag that just says "image1.jpg" provides nothing.

For SEO, alt text helps Google understand what images depict, contributing to both page relevance signals and the ability to appear in Google Image Search. Images without alt text are invisible to search engines in terms of content understanding.

Good alt text describes the image clearly and concisely (usually under 125 characters), includes relevant keywords where they genuinely describe the image (not stuffed in artificially), and is specific rather than generic. "Woman at laptop" is worse than "Health coach leading an online consultation from her home office."

Decorative images that add visual interest but contain no meaningful information can have empty alt text (alt=""), this tells screen readers to skip the image entirely, which is the correct behavior for a decorative border or background pattern.

A website audit that checks all images for missing alt text typically uncovers dozens of accessibility and SEO improvements on sites that have not been actively managed. This is a low-effort, high-impact fix that can improve both rankings and legal compliance (many accessibility regulations require meaningful alt text).

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