Are Alt Tags Important in SEO? A Complete Guide

Do you add images to your website often but don’t add alt tags for them? You might be missing out on your ranking chances that could be done with a few simple steps.

While categorising websites on the basis of usability, Google search crawlers try to index your images along with your content, thus, bringing us to alt tags.

What are Alt Tags?

Alt text, alt tag or alternative text, provides a description of an image on a webpage. Now, it caters to two audiences — first, the visually impaired people in knowing about the image. Second, the search engine bots to interpret the content of the image. 

Typically, alt text is included using the alt attribute in the HTML code of an image, like <img src=“image-file-example.jpg” alt=“put your text here”>

Note: Alt text only gets displayed when the image fails to load, making it different from an image caption that you can always see on the page.

Why Are Alt Tags Important in SEO?

Alt tags are important for image SEO, helping images rank higher in Google Images and other image search results. This increased visibility can drive significant traffic to your website. For instance, the search engine results page (SERP) for “blue shoes” is filled with images that link back to their original websites.

Alt tags is crucial for making images accessible to both users and search engines, even when the images aren’t visible. Without proper alt text, people using screen readers cannot access information from images, thus unfairly leaving out people with visual impairments. 

This can further impact your brand’s reputation, website traffic, and conversion rates. 

Writing Your Alt Tag The Right Way

Here’s how you can add alt tag for your website:

1. Focus on the right pictures 

Once you start adding alt tag to images, you may find that many pictures on your website mostly exist for design purposes, and don’t provide much information. 

In that case you needn’t focus too much or write a descriptive alt text about it as it can distract the visually impaired users.

But that doesn’t mean you have to leave the alt text entirely. If you do, the assistive technology might read out the file name, thus leading to a negative user experience.

Instead, use an empty alt attribute. This indicates to screen readers to disregard the image. For example: <img src=”decorative-image-title.jpg” alt=””>

2. Be descriptive in limited words

Even though there is no set character limit on alt texts, the best practice is to keep your alt tag as concise as possible to support the image’s purpose. Most alt texts are effective with 125 characters, as many assistive technologies might stop reading at that point. 

The significance of an image can vary based on context, so it’s important to consider the surrounding content and audience when writing alt text. 

For instance, the alt text “a student in a college” may be suitable in many situations, but in a university website, a more detailed description of the college or the course might be required.

Here are some further do’s and don’ts of writing an alt text: 

Do’s:

• Provide atl texts for images that are Icons or symbols indicating an action
• Images that offer additional context (a comparison between two things)  
• Infographics that show steps (for example, how to request a quote)

Don’ts:

• Add photo credits and copyright details. (They belong in the image caption)
• Redundant phrases like “image of” or “photo of,” unless the format is particularly relevant.
• Information that is essential for all readers. (By all means keep this in the caption or body text)
• Information already provided in the image caption or body content.

3. Incorporate Keywords

Including relevant keywords in alt text can improve your images’ visibility in Google image searches. To determine which keywords to use in alt text, conduct keyword research.

You can also refer to tools such as SEMRush or Ahrefs for keyword suggestions on alt tags. If it is a landing page or a blog, you can try to include the main keyword in the alt text. 

But don’t get carried away by stuffing keywords in any alt text you could find. It is better to stick to usability rather than appeasing the search engine bots.

Maximise Your Alt Tags for Higher Accessibility and SEO Ranking

This was all about the importance of alt tags and how to write them. If you are thinking of adding alt tags manually, it could take a lot more time than you originally thought of. In the case of CMS like WordPress, adding alt texts is easy but if your image count exceeds 500, you may not want to give a lot of time. Instead, you could run a site audit in any SEO tool and it will pinpoint the missing alt tags in your website. 
Need help with alt tags or more complex SEO problems? We’re here to guide you. Get a free quote with our SEO agency NZ on your customised SEO roadmap.