Image Alt Text: Accessibility & SEO Guide for San Diego Businesses

Alt text (alternative text) is an HTML attribute added to image tags that describes the image content:

html<img src="golden-retriever-park.jpg" alt="Golden retriever playing fetch in Central Park on a sunny afternoon">

Alt text serves three critical purposes: 1. Screen readers read the alt text aloud to visually impaired users 2. Search engines use alt text to understand image content (Google cannot "see" images) 3. Broken images display the alt text when an image fails to load

Without alt text, screen reader users hear "image" with no context, and Google has no idea what your image shows.

Google has explicitly stated that alt text is one of the most important factors for image search rankings. Here is how it impacts your SEO:

Image search traffic: Google Images drives significant traffic. Proper alt text helps your images rank for relevant queries.

Page relevance signals: Alt text contributes to the overall topical relevance of your page. An article about "running shoes" with images that have alt text containing "running shoes" reinforces the page topic.

Featured snippets: Google sometimes pulls images into featured snippets based on alt text relevance.

E-commerce impact: For product pages, alt text like "Nike Air Max 90 white running shoe side view" helps products appear in Google Shopping and image results.

Be specific and descriptive: Instead of "dog," write "Golden retriever puppy sleeping on a red sofa."

Keep it concise: Aim for 125 characters or less. Screen readers may cut off longer text.

Include keywords naturally: If the image is of a product, include the product name. But do not keyword stuff.

Do not start with "Image of" or "Picture of": Screen readers already announce it as an image.

Describe the function for UI elements: For a search icon button, use alt="Search" not alt="magnifying glass."

Use empty alt for decorative images: Purely decorative images should use alt="" (empty) so screen readers skip them.

Examples: - Bad: alt="image1.jpg" - Bad: alt="shoe" - Bad: alt="Image of a shoe product best running shoes buy shoes online" - Good: alt="Nike Air Max 90 in white and gray, side profile view" - Good: alt="" (for a decorative border image)

Missing alt text entirely: The most common issue. Every meaningful image needs alt text.

Using filenames as alt text: "IMG_4532.jpg" tells nobody anything.

Keyword stuffing: "Best cheap SEO tool free SEO audit SEO checker" in an alt tag is spam.

Being too vague: "A person" or "a building" is not helpful.

Ignoring context: The same image may need different alt text depending on the page context. A photo of a chef on a restaurant page vs. on a cooking class page should have different alt text.

Not using empty alt for decorative images: Decorative images (borders, spacers, backgrounds) should have alt="" to avoid cluttering screen reader output.